THE    TYRANNY    OF    SHAMS 


THE 

TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 


BY 


JOSEPH     McCABE 

AUTHOR  OF  "  A  CANDID  HISTORY  OF  THE  JESUITS " 
"THB  IRON  CARDINAL"  ETC. 


NEW    YORK 
DODD,  MEAD  &  COMPANY 

1916 


Printed  in  Great  Britain 


PREFACE 

THIS  book  is  a  frank  criticism  of  most  of  the 
dominant  ideas  and  institutions  of  our  time  :  a 
confession  of  faith  in  nearly  all  the  more  daring 
heresies  which  hold,  so  to  say,  the  firing  line  of  our 
literature :  a  conception  of  a  new  social  order  and 
new  planetary  arrangement.  It  is  therefore  can- 
didly egoistic,  and  I  should  like  to  explain  the 
circumstances  in  which  it  was  designed  and  written. 
It  was  conceived,  and  much  of  it  was  written, 
during  the  long  voyage  from  Australia  to  England. 
At  that  time  I  had  issued,  if  I  may  include  the 
introduction  to  English  readers  of  foreign  writers, 
some  fifty  publications,  and  in  these  I  had  generally 
described  remote  periods  of  history,  or  even  remoter 
periods  of  the  earth's  story  or  distant  regions  of  the 
universe.  Many  had  asked  me  to  tell  them  things 
more  intimate  and  important  than  the  way  in  which 
stars  were  formed,  or  the  manners  of  extinct  Dino- 
saurs and  ancient  empresses  :  asked  if  thirty  years' 
study  of  philosophy,  science,  and  history  had  given 
me  no  interest  in,  or  light  upon,  the  problems  of  the 
hour.  In  Australasia  this  request  was  made  more 
insistently  than  ever.  Our  ancient  prejudices  have 
been  transplanted  into  the  soil  of  the  new  world, 


vi  PREFACE 

and  they  have  thriven  there,  like  the  gorse,  the 
sparrow,  the  rabbit,  and  so  many  other  pests  which 
sentimental  colonists  have  introduced  in  order  to 
remind  them  of  "  home."  But  new  ideas  also 
have  been  imported,  and  they  find  a  rich  soil  in 
the  free,  unconventional,  enterprising  colonial  mind. 
Men  and  women  are  asking  the  same  questions  there 
as  in  London  and  New  York. 

The  general  drift  or  implication  of  these  questions 
obsessed  me  daily  during  the  slow  traverse  of  the 
Southern  Ocean.  Day  after  day  the  great  liner 
visibly  rounded  this  vast  ball  of  metal  which  we  call 
our  earth  ;  and  to  me  there  is  no  more  impressive 
symbol  than  this  of  the  power  and  the  future  of 
man.  Some  complain  that  at  sea  they  feel  the 
earth  and  man  and  man's  concerns  made  trivial 
by  the  great  fires  which  blaze  through  the  darker 
sky.  .  But  largeness  is  not  greatness,  and  a  vast 
prairie  in  some  inaccessible  region  does  not  make 
less  precious  the  little  plot  of  earth  at  your  door 
that  you  can  make  beautiful.  Your  predominant 
feeling,  when  you  round  the  globe  and  see  with  your 
own  eye  its  limitations,  is  one  of  power.  This 
sphere,  you  feel,  is  the  principality  of  man  ;  and 
there  never  was  a  power  so  despotic  and  far-reaching 
as  the  power  of  a  united  race  would  be.  You  feel 
as  if  the  earth  could  be  embraced  in  the  arms  of 
a  giant,  and  humanity  is  the  giant.  If  men  were 
agreed  in  their  designs,  the  earth  would  be  as  clay 
in  the  hand  of  the  potter.  It  would  prove  as 
passive  and  tractable  as  the  child's  ball  of  plasticine 


PREFACE  vii 

— if  all,  or  the  great  part  of,  men  and  women  were 
agreed  as  to  the  shape  it  was  desirable  to  impose 
on  it.  In  our  age  differences  of  ideal  restrain  the 
hand  and  prevent  us  from  giving  a  fairer  face  to  the 
earth.  The  power  of  a  united  mankind  would  be 
something  akin  to  omnipotence.  Every  man  or 
woman  who  has  seen  the  earth  with  this  larger 
vision  must  seethe  with  impatience  to  end  this 
conflict  of  old  traditions  and  new  ideas  which 
paralyses  our  hands  ;  to  do  what  he  or  she  can  to 
accelerate  that  final  harmony  of  conviction  which 
will  set  free  the  fingers  of  the  Great  Potter.  That  is 
the  controlling  sentiment  of  this  little  book. 

It  happens  that,  before  the  book  reaches  the 
public,  one  of  those  traditions  which  it  assails  has 
spread  a  ghastly  devastation  over  the  face  of  the 
earth.  For  nearly  twenty  years  I  have  used  my 
slender  opportunities  as  speaker  and  writer  to 
denounce  the  military  machine  :  to  imagine  the 
mighty  resources  we  waste  on  militarism  and  war 
transferred  to  those  enterprises  which  seek  to 
brighten  the  earth  and  make  the  hearts  of  men 
and  women  lighter.  Now  the  little  sermon,  which 
many  feeble  voices  were  preaching,  is  taken  up  by 
an  orator  whose  voice  thunders  from  pole  to  pole, 
whose  words  are  blood-curdling  realities.  Ten 
thousand  million  sterling,  perhaps,  poured  into  the 
sea  in  eighteen  months  :  ten  million  men,  perhaps, 
prematurely  blasted  off  the  earth  or  stricken  for 
life  :  and  a  trail  of  blood  and  tears  and  misery  that 
all  the  mighty  fertility  of  the  earth  will  take  a 


viii  PREFACE 

generation  to  obliterate  !  Nor  does  this  outpour 
of  horror  merely  mean  that  one  feature  of  our  life 
needs  reconsideration.  We  could  not  have  re- 
tained this  military  machine,  with  its  ever-present 
danger  of  an  appalling  calamity,  if  our  minds  were 
generally  sane,  alert,  unclogged  by  shams. 

One  inquires  how  it  is  that  a  generation  which 
boasts  of  its  wisdom  and  humanity  can  retain  this 
worst  survival  of  barbarism,  and  one  finds  that  the 
evil  is  connected  with  a  dozen  other  evils  and  pro- 
tected by  a  general  mental  debility.  The  habit  of 
tracing  this  calamity  to  the  peculiar  criminality 
of  another  nation,  and  dwelling  only  on  our  own 
heroism  and  self-sacrifice  in  meeting  this  menace, 
is  in  itself  a  very  grave  danger.  We  may  be  entirely 
certain  that,  as  long  as  we  retain  the  military 
machinery  for  settling  quarrels,  there  will  be  wars. 
How  came  the  machinery  to  linger  amongst  us  in 
the  twentieth  century  ?  At  once  we  light  upon  a 
dozen  other  disorders  of  our  life.  This  remissness 
in  civilising  international  intercourse  argues  a  grave 
indifference  to  a  most  important  task  on  the  part  of 
our  political  servants,  and  an  equally  grave  absence 
of  pressure  and  direction  on  the  part  of  their  sup- 
porters. It  reveals  a  dangerously  slovenly  condi- 
tion of  our  industrial  world,  a  very  serious  defect 
in  our  educational  system,  a  standing  menace  in 
the  encouraged  thoughtlessness  of  the  mass  of  our 
people,  a  general  flabbiness,  haziness,  and  anaemia 
of  what  may  be  called  the  intellectual  part  of  our 
public  life. 


PREFACE  ix 

This  is  true  of  all  nations, — it  may  be  the  turn 
of  the  United  States,  or  Norway,  or  Argentina  to- 
morrow,— but  it  is  most  seriously  true  of  England. 
Do  not  let  us  fuddle  our  minds  with  the  kind  of 
rhetoric  one  addresses  to  schoolboys.  We  have, 
in  the  first  year  of  the  war,  betrayed  a  sluggishness, 
a  lack  of  foresight  and  initiative,  a  feebleness  of 
organisation,  which  ought  to  sober  any  race,  how- 
ever wealthy.  Our  Government  knew,  or  ought  to 
have  known,  since  the  spring  of  1912,  that  just  this 
war  was  threatening  us  ;  and,  when  it  occurred, 
they  made  a  virtue  of  the  fact  that  we  were  "  the 
least  prepared  nation  in  Europe."  They  took  nine 
months  to  begin  to  organise  our  resources,  or  to 
perceive  that  it  was  necessary  to  do  so.  Plainly, 
there  is  something  profoundly,  comprehensively 
wrong  with  our  public  life.  We  shall  "  muddle 
through,"  because  we  have  the  resources,  and 
because  the  Allies  outnumber  their  opponents  by 
fifty  per  cent.  But  if  in  a  future  war  we  are 
compelled  to  face  a  numerically  equal  opponent, 
England  will,  if  she  retains  these  faults,  see  her 
royal  standard  in  the  dust.  As  it  is,  the  cost  of  our 
ineptitude  will  be  prodigious. 

So  I  am  confirmed  in  my  design  to  declare  what 
seems  to  me  to  be  wrong  with  our  life.  I  choose 
the  form  of  a  direct  challenge  of  old  traditions 
mainly  because  they  so  oppress  and  benumb  the 
public  mind  that  new  ideals  do  not  get  a  fair  con- 
sideration. But  it  will  be  found  that  behind  the 
series  of  challenges  there  is  a  series  of  affirmations, 


x  PREFACE 

and  these  make  up  a  constructive  ideal  of  life. 
Probably  few  will  accept  this  ideal  in  its  entirety, 
though  each  chapter  advocates  a  reform  which  has 
millions  of  adherents.  It  is,  however,  not  based 
on  any  'ism,  least  of  all  on  dogmatism.  There  is  a 
view  of,  or  attitude  toward,  life  expounded  in  the 
first  chapter,  and  behind  each  particular  claim. 
But  each  section  deals  with  a  specific  department  of 
life  and  must  find  its  justification  within  the  limits 
of  that  department.  If  any  regret  that  the  work 
does  not  embody  a  profound  philosophy  of  life,  I 
must  reply  that  I  passed  through  philosophy  thirty 
years  ago,  and  came  out  into  science  and  history 
in  search  of  reality  :  and  that  philosophers  do  not 
seem  to  me  to  be  either  agreed  among  themselves 
or  in  any  close  relationship  to  the  human  problems 
I  discuss. 

Many  will  advise  me,  too,  that  a  man  would  do 
well  to  conceal  the  more  offensive  of  his  heresies, 
in  order  to  gain  a  more  patient  hearing  for  the 
others.  That  is  the  usual  and  prudent  practice, 
no  doubt ;  but  this  book  has  been  written  in  a 
mood  of  fiery  impatience  with  untruth,  and  this 
has  forbidden  compromise.  Night  by  night,  as  I 
sit  on  the  deck  of  the  ship,  I  watch  the  dark  purple 
pall  drop  swiftly  over  the  last  flush  of  the  tropical 
sky ;  and  I  know  that,  each  night,  it  shrouds  the 
faces  of  thousands  of  men,  women,  and  children 
whose  chance  of  happiness  is  gone  for  ever.  We 
are  arguing  to-day  about  man's  ailments  just  as 
the  Greeks  were  arguing  in  the  Agora  at  Athens 


PREFACE  xi 

two  thousand  years  ago,  or  as  men  argued  in  the 
garden  of  Plato  or  of  Epicurus.  Meantime  almost 
countless  millions  have  lived  in  pain  and  squalor, 
and  died  in  delusive  hope,  under  the  curse  of  those 
ancient  traditions  which  we  will  not  discard. 
Therefore  I  am  impatient :  I  cannot  sit  in  quiet 
enjoyment  of  the  sunshine  that  is  granted  me.  It 
will  be  found  that  no  man  appraises  more  highly 
than  I  the  advance  we  have  made  in  modern  times, 
and  that  I  nowhere  exaggerate  the  darker  features 
of  life.  If  at  times  I  write  fiercely,  cynically,  even 
bitterly,  it  is  not  from  pessimism,  but  from  fulness 
and  fire  of  optimism.  My  controlling  thought  is, 
as  I  said,  a  consciousness  of  our  power. 

There  are  two  types  of  people  into  whose  hands 
this  book  may  fall.  The  first  is  the  man  or  woman 
whose  nerves  must  not  be  disturbed  by  the  spectacle 
of  the  misery  of  less  fortunate  beings  :  who  finds 
life  good,  and  instinctively  resents  any  proposals 
to  tamper  with  its  foundations.  These  people 
are  no  more  open  to  blame,  as  a  rule,  than  the 
prophet  is  entitled  to  praise  for  his  ardour.  We 
do  not  choose  our  temperament,  whatever  else  we 
choose.  But  one  does  not  appeal  to  these  com- 
fortable people.  They  would  have  refined  and 
pleasant  things  about  them  always,  and  they 
shrink  from  the  vaults  where,  they  dimly  know, 
ugly  and  sordid  and  writhing  things  are  crowded 
together  :  lest  their  glance,  fall  on  some  yellow 
and  distorted  face  whose  hollow  cheeks,  or  eyes 
bloodshot  with  pain  or  brutality,  would  disturb 


xii  PREFACE 

the  even  pleasure  of  their  lives.  So  be  it.  Let  it 
be  written  in  stark  letters  on  their  marble  stones, 
when  the  last  peach  has  dropped  from  their  relaxing 
fingers  :  My  ideal  was  to  enjoy  life,  and  to  let  the 
devil  take  the  hindmost. 

Do  not  let  me  be  misunderstood.  The  enjoy- 
ment of  life  is  the  supreme  ideal  advocated  in  this 
book.  I  loathe  asceticism,  either  Christian  or 
Stoic.  But  I  write  for  the  second  type  of  man  or 
woman  :  the  people  who  are  strong  and  healthy 
enough  to  enjoy  every  pleasure  that  life  affords, 
yet  keep  some  thought  for  the  unhappiness  of 
others :  who  think  it  a  normal  part  even  of  a 
pleasant  and  refined  life,  especially  a  leisured  life, 
to  spare  some  hours  for  seeking  how  the  world 
may  be  improved  for  less  fortunate  folk  :  who, 
precisely  because  they  love  the  sunlight,  ask  if  it 
cannot  be  devised  that  all  men  and  women  and 
children  shall  have  a  larger  share  of  it.  Their 
chief  difficulty  is  that,  unhappily,  the  new  prophets 
are  as  discordant  as  the  old.  A  few  centuries 
ago,  when  you  crossed  London  Bridge,  or  the  Pont 
Neuf  at  Paris,  or  the  Ponte  Vecchio  at  Florence, 
a  score  of  rival  quacks  or  charlatans  (in  the  literal 
sense)  cried  in  your  ears  the  virtues  of  their  con- 
flicting remedies.  To-day  just  so  many  conflicting 
social  physicians  cry  their  wares  in  the  streets. 
They  oppose  each  other  almost  as  bitterly  as  they 
oppose  the  older  traditions.  How  shall  a  busy 
man  or  woman  decide  among  them  ?  What  fixed 
and  unalterable  principle,  in  this  world  of  dis- 


PREFACE  xiii 

solving  creeds,  can  you  adopt  for  the  testing  of 
their  truth  or  untruth  ? 

A  very  grave  and  sincere  difficulty.  Therefore, 
again,  I  have  chosen  to  attack  what  seem  to  me  to 
be  shams  :  which  I  would  define  as  untruths  that 
the  millions  venerate  as  truths.  The  work  of 
reform  will  proceed  very  slowly  and  very  pre- 
cariously until  these  are  resolutely  discredited  and 
dethroned.  In  each  case,  it  is  true,  it  will  be  found 
that  the  dethronement  of  an  error  enthrones  a 
truth  ;  but  I  insist  that  we  will  pay  no  grave  and 
practical  attention  to  constructive  schemes  until 
we  fully  realise  the  blunders  and  brutalities  of  our 
present  civilisation.  The  discord  of  our  social 
prophets  does  not  excuse  us  from  perceiving  these. 

As  to  fixed  and  unalterable  principles,  it  seems 
to  me  that  two,  at  least,  are  not  disturbed  by  the 
ground-quakes  of  our  time.  Perhaps  they  stand 
with  more  conspicuous  firmness  when  so  many  other 
"  eternal  verities "  have  fallen.  The  first  is  the 
principle  of  truthfulness  or  sincerity.  Of  this  it 
need  be  said  only  that,  if  there  are  any  parts  of  our 
human  tradition  which  the  larger  mind  of  our  age 
discovers  to  be  untrue,  they  ought  to  be  rejected 
at  once  ;  and  the  more  closely  they  are  woven 
into  our  social  fabric,  the  more  speedily  and  more 
apprehensively  they  ought  to  be  torn  out.  The 
second  and  greater  principle  is  the  aim  of  arresting 
suffering  and  diffusing  happiness  as  far  as  possible. 
I  will  consider  this  presently,  and  merely  state 
here  that  these  chapters  have  been  written  solely 


xiv  PREFACE 

in  the  name  and  under  the  inspiration  of  that  ideal. 
And  if  my  words  are  at  times  violent,  the  violence 
is  due  solely  to  a  great  eagerness  for  the  speedier 
coming  of  a  brighter  and  more  intelligent  age  and 
to  a  sincere  abhorrence  of  cant  and  shams  and  all 
that  lengthens  this  grey  twilight  of  civilisation. 

J.  M. 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  rAGK 

I.  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVOLT  i 

II.  THE  MILITARY  SHAM         .          .  .  .22 

III.  THE  FOLLIES  OF  SHAM  PATRIOTISM  .  .      50 

IV.  POLITICAL  SHAMS     ,          .          .  .  .76 
V.  THE  DISTRIBUTION  OF  WEALTH  .  .  .109 

VI.  IDOLS  OF  THE  HOME          .          .  .  .148 

VII.  THE  FUTURE  OF  WOMAN  .          .  .  .179 

VIII.  SHAMS  OF  THE  SCHOOL      .          .  .  .205 

IX.  THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  ADULT  .  .  .    233 

X.  THE  CLERICAL  SHAM         .          ,          .  .259 


THE  TYRANNY   OF   SHAMS 

CHAPTER    I 

THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF   REVOLT1 

ALTHOUGH  this  work  does  not  embody  any  system 
of  speculation  about  the  universe,  any  creed  or 
'ism  or  large  and  abstruse  set  of  principles,  it  must 
begin  with  a  careful  study  of  the  phenomenon  of 
revolt.  Never  before  was  there  such  an  age  of 
general  and  feverish  restlessness ;  never  was  there 
such  quaking  of  the  deepest  foundations  of  old 
institutions,  such  tottering  of  thrones  and  altars. 
From  every  intellectual  centre  the  disturbing  waves 
radiate.  Round  London,  Berlin,  and  New  York 
the  rumbling  is  habitual.  Already  they  perceive 
it  in  Tokyo  and  Peking  and  Constantinople.  To- 
morrow it  will  break  on  the  ear  in  Teheran  and 
Lhasa.  The  same  questions  are  asked  all  over  the 
earth.  I  have  discussed  them  with  millionaires 
at  the  Ritz  and  with  great  ladies  at  Claridge's  : 
with  students  in  their  universities  and  miners  in 

lThis  chapter  is,  with  a  few  [alterations,  reproduced  from  The 
English  Review,  October  1914. 
2 


2  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

their  cottages  :  with  learned  professors  in  Rome 
or  New  York,  and  with  notorious  anarchists  in 
obscure  corners  of  Paris  :  with  working  girls  in 
Melbourne,  with  Maoris  in  Wellington,  with  Chinese 
and  Hindus  and  alert,  full-blooded  Africans.  I 
have  been  invited  to  discuss  them  with  a  Poly- 
nesian princess  and  to  lecture  on  them  in  Fiji, 
and  I  have  had  letters  on  them  from  Japanese 
settlers  in  British  Columbia  and  negro  tailors  in 
British  Guiana.  The  same  questions  everywhere  : 
religious  doctrines  and  political  forms,  education 
and  industry,  marriage  and  woman — almost  every 
ideal  and  institution  we  have  inherited.  And  the 
persistent  note  that  resounds  from  continent  to 
continent  is  the  note  of  rebellion. 

Very  different  feelings  are  inspired  by  this  char- 
acteristic fact  of  modern  life.  To  some  it  seems 
that  this  melting  of  the  rigid  framework  of  tradi- 
tions is  a  welcome  sign  of  spring  and  growth  :  that 
a  long  winter,  which  had  slowed  the  blood  of  the 
earth  and  retarded  the  development  of  civilisation, 
is  over  at  last,  and  little,  shapeless,  promising 
shoots  of  new  ideals  are  rising  from  the  loosened 
soil.  To  others  it  seems  as  if  the  binding  fabric  of 
our  civilisation  were  weakened  and  we  were  in 
danger  of  returning  to  barbarism.  Surely  those 
old  traditions  did  hold  together  the  structure  of 
our  civilisation  ?  And  surely  it  is  impossible  to 
replace  in  a  few  generations  the  links  of  a  planet- 
wide  human  society  ?  The  shades  of  dead  Memphis 
and  Babylon  and  Nineveh,  of  Athens  and  Rome 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVOLT  3 

and  Bagdad,  of  Venice  and  Genoa  and  Florence, 
pass  before  their  anxious  eyes.  In  each  case,  they 
remind  us,  this  same  moral,  social,  and  intellectual 
restlessness  preceded  death. 

The  inevitable  specialism  of  our  age  adds  to  the 
confusion.  Life  is  a  connected  whole,  yet  neither 
research  nor  reform  can  now  be  other  than  sectional. 
We  devote  ourselves  to  a  candid  study  ot  some  par- 
ticular reform,  and  we  find  it  a  thoroughly  reason- 
able proposal,  a  deduction  from  principles  that 
we  are  bound  to  admit.  But  we  have  not  had 
leisure  to  discover  the  indisputable  principles  of 
other  reforms ;  and,  when  we  hear  the  demand  of 
change  and  progress  rising  on  one  side  after  another 
—in  the  Church,  the  State,  the  Home,  the  School, 
and  so  on — we  remark  sententiously  that  rebellion 
is  becoming  a  fashion,  that  our  generation  is  getting 
feverish  or  neurotic,  that  we  must  insist  on  authority 
somewhere.  We  repeat  plausible  phrases  about 
the  decay  of  respect  and  the  wisdom  of  the  race. 
We  fasten  on  symptoms  of  disorder — without 
inquiring  very  closely  whether  the  disorder  is  new 
or  has  been  recently  aggravated — and  we  con- 
clude that  conservatism  is  a  social  duty  :  that,  at 
all  events,  we  will  admit  reform  only  by  the  inch. 
We  fancy  ourselves  the  guardians  of  the  palladium. 

Quite  apart  from  purely  selfish  motives,  some  of 
the  closest  observers  of  our  age  do  differ  radically 
in  diagnosis  and  prescription.  The  same  move- 
ments are  symptoms  of  health  to  one  man,  symptoms 
of  disease  to  another.  Take  the  enlargement  of 


4  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

divorce,  the  decay  of  clerical  authority,  the  in- 
dustrial revolt,  or  the  rebellion  of  women.  There 
seems  to  be  no  common  ground  left  on  which  the 
observers  may  meet  with  any  hope  of  agreement. 
The  old  religious  and  political  standards  will  now 
hopelessly  divide  any  roomful  of  educated  men 
and  women.  You  propose,  perhaps,  to  fall  back 
on  moral  standards — the  ground  on  which  "  all 
reasonable  people "  unite — and  someone  quotes 
against  you  half  a  dozen  of  the  most  brilliant 
writers  of  Europe  and  America.  Hopes  and 
lamentations,  inspired  by  precisely  the  same  facts 
of  life,  mingle  confusedly  in  our  literature,  and  men 
and  women  of  large  heart  and  little  leisure  seem  to 
be  condemned  to  a  sterile  perplexity  or  a  selfish 
absorption  in  business  and  pleasure.  What,  at  all 
events,  is  the  meaning  or  purpose  of  life  ?  And 
how  is  this  spreading  rebellion  related  to  it  ? 

First  let  us  examine  the  grounds  of  the  very 
distressing  forecasts  of  the  Conservative.  In  the 
vast  majority  of  cases  that  are  worth  examining  one 
will  find  that  the  pessimism  has  not  very  firm  founda- 
tions. Your  dismal  prophet  is  usually  a  man  with 
an  ancient  gospel  which  we  are  discarding,  or  a  new 
gospel  which  does  not  attract  us.  The  appeal  to 
the  modern  world,  he  realises,  must  be  utilitarian  : 
he  must  show  us  that,  without  him,  we  perish.  So 
he  recklessly  heaps  up  before  our  eyes  statistics 
of  crime  and  consumption  and  lunacy  and  alcohol : 
he  makes  weird  and  totally  inaccurate  statements 
about  France  or  the  United  States  or  some  other 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVOLT  5 

country  :  he  marshals  the  shades  of  dead  empires — 
which  seem  to  have  died  of  a  wonderful  com- 
plication of  modern  maladies — before  us  with 
appropriate  rhetoric. 

Now  to  this  kind  of  conservatism,  which  says 
that  we  are  decaying,  I  reply  that,  on  every  positive 
test  of  national  health,  we  are  more  flourishing 
than  we  ever  were  before.  Dark  as  the  earth  is, 
it  was  never  brighter  than  it  is  to-day,  or  more  full 
of  promise  for  the  morrow.  The  war  is  not  incon- 
sistent with  this  general  statement,  as  I  will  show 
later.  A  failure  to  advance  in  one  direction  does 
not  alter  the  fact  that  we  have  advanced  in  a 
hundred  others  ;  and  the  gross  behaviour  of  one 
nation  does  not  destroy  the  gain  that  half  a  dozen 
other  nations  were  ready  to  behave  with  a  new 
decency  in  warfare.  As  to  that  "  lesson  of  history  " 
which  is  stridently  read  to  us  by  men  and  women 
whose  command  of  history  is  not  otherwise  con- 
spicuous, I  would  remind  them  that  the  civilisation 
of  dead  empires  always  reached  its  height  just 
before,  or  at  the  time  when,  they  began  to  decay. 
Does  anyone  suggest  that  we  ought  not  further  to 
develop  our  civilisation  lest  we  also  decay  ?  How- 
ever, I  have  sufficiently  discussed  elsewhere  this 
nonsense  about  "  laws  of  history  "  ;  and  I  will 
show  later  that  these  older  empires  decayed,  not 
because  of  their  high  development  of  intellect  and 
fine  sentiment,  which  leads  to  revolt,  but  from  the 
natural  defect  of  those  very  institutions  which  our 
conservatives  defend. 


6  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

We  are  not  decaying.  England  is,  for  every 
class  of  its  citizens,  an  immeasurably  finer  place  to 
live  in  than  it  was  a  hundred  years  ago.  I  speak  on 
the  strength  of  a  rigorous  comparison  of  the  moral 
and  social  life  of  England  a  century  ago  with  that 
of  modern  England,  but  I  cannot  give  the  facts 
here.  Let  it  suffice  to  make  plain  that  I  have 
no  sympathy  with  pessimists  and  preachers  of 
penance  and  austerity,  of  any  school.  The  world 
improves,  and  improves  more  rapidly  than  it  ever 
did  before.  What  stirs  one's  impatience  is  the 
consciousness  that  we  could,  and  do  not,  move 
with  infinitely  greater  speed  :  that  we  tolerate 
abuses  and  shams  which  insult  our  intelligence  and 
mock  our  professions  of  humanity. 

What,  then,  are  the  grounds  of  the  optimistic 
view  of  this  widespread  revolt  ?  Let  us  admit 
that  conservatism,  in  the  sense  of  an  attitude  of 
caution,  is  a  virtue.  We  would  not  try  unknown 
drugs  on  the  life  of  an  individual,  and  we  ought  not 
to  apply  untried  recipes  to  the  life  of  forty  million 
people.  Yet  it  is  precisely  from  this  medical  world 
that  we  gather  valuable  hints  of  progress.  By  two 
centuries  of  sober  and  heroic  labour  the  physician 
has  brought  the  greater  part  of  our  maladies  under 
control.  He  would  tell  you,  in  private,  that  he  has 
a  hope  of  eventually  being  able  to  check  all  disease 
and  prolong  life.  The  laissez-faire  attitude  is  un- 
known in  medical  science.  It  is  unknown  in  our 
technical  and  commercial  worlds.  We  have  made 
stupendous  progress,  not  by  conserving,  but  by 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVOLT  7 

innovating  :  not  asking  if  a  machine  or  a  system 
worked  well,  but  if  we  could  devise  a  better.  In 
science — in  all  on  which  we  pride  ourselves  in  modern 
civilisation — we  have  followed  the  progressive 
principle :  we  have  cultivated  revolt.  Since  we 
began  to  do  so,  we  have  raised  the  level  of  our 
civilisation  in  each  generation. 

It  is  therefore  not  surprising  that  many  are 
asking  whether  we  ought  not  to  extend  the  pro- 
gressive principle  to  our  religions,  moralities, 
politics,  economic  systems,  schools,  domestic  and 
civic  and  social  traditions.  It  is,  in  other  words, 
quite  natural  that  there  should  be  a  demand  for, 
not  one  reform  only,  but  a  hundred  reforms,  in 
modern  life.  We  are  justly,  wisely  proud  of  what 
is  distinctive  and  superior  in  our  civilisation  : 
advance,  better  organisation,  economy  of  waste, 
greater  efficiency.  The  mystery  is  that  so  many 
would  restrict  this  improvement  to  what  they  call 
the  "  lower"  material  departments  of  life,  and  keep 
a  strict  guard  against  the  reformer  at  the  frontiers 
of  their  spiritual  or  political  world.  The  modern 
rebellion  is  a  very  logical  effort  to  apply  these  very 
successful  principles  to  as  much  of  life  as  is  sus- 
ceptible of  improvement. 

This  effort,  further,  coincides  with  the  quite 
dominant  and  characteristic  note  of  modern  culture  : 
evolution.  We  forget  sometimes  that  until  half  a 
century  ago  Europe  was  oppressed  by  an  entirely 
wrong  view  of  the  earth's  resources.  Plato  put  a 
philosophic  anathema  on  the  earth.  This  material 


8  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

mass,  he  said,  was  a  barren  thing.  Order,  truth, 
beauty,  love  had  to  come  to  it,  in  fitful  gleams,  from 
a  world  beyond,  over  which  man  had  no  control. 
We  know  now  that  Plato  was  wrong.  Order,  truth, 
beauty,  and  love  have  developed  on  the  earth — 
they  are  "  sublunary  "  things — and  man  can  control 
their  sources  and  enlarge  their  proportions.  They 
do  not  properly  make  men  great  :  men  make  them 
great.  They  are  as  surely  under  our  direction  as 
are  applied  science  and  commerce  and  the  franchise. 
We  can  cultivate  them  as  we  now  cultivate  pansies 
or  sheep.  It  depends  on  us  if  lies  and  disorder  and 
dishonour  are  to  linger  among  us,  or  if  truth  and 
justice  and  beauty  are  to  prevail. 

Again  therefore  it  is  quite  natural  that  we  should 
hear  a  demand  for  a  more  extensive  use  of  these 
powers  of  ours.  The  ships  and  ploughs  and 
illuminants  of  a  hundred  years  ago  were  made  by 
the  same  men,  or  the  same  generations  of  men,  as 
the  religions  and  polities  and  moralities  of  the  time. 
Why  assume  that  the  wisdom  of  the  race  was 
almost  infallible  in  its  spiritual  and  more  difficult 
creations,  but  capable  of  enormous  improvement 
on  the  material  side  ?  Conservatism,  as  anything 
more  than  an  attitude  of  caution  and  prudence,  has 
not  a  plausible  air. 

It  is  well  also  to  regard  the  essential  or  char- 
acteristic line  of  human  evolution.  Apart  from  a 
few  who  are  caught  by  a  transient  attempt  to 
glorify  instinct,  we  agree  that  the  development 
of  intelligence  is  one  of  the  main  sources  of  progress. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVOLT  9 

Now  this  great  and  general  awakening  of  intelligence 
in  recent  decades  was  bound  to  lead  to  a  good  deal 
of  challenging  of  old  traditions.  That  was  precisely 
why  the  grandfathers  of  our  bishops  and  peers 
opposed  it.  This  higher  intelligence  of  the  race 
is  now  assisted  in  its  decisions  by  a  vastly  greater 
and  more  accurate  knowledge  of  man  and  the 
universe  than  our  grandparents  had ;  and  the 
cheapening  of  literature  dimly  conveys  this  know- 
ledge to  millions  who  were  left  out  of  account  when 
the  traditional  maps  of  life  were  drafted.  The 
artisan  discusses  economics  and  theology.  The 
Tonga  Islander  works  out  mathematical  problems. 
I  met  a  pure-blooded  negro,  with  a  European  degree 
in  philosophy,  who  told  me  that  he  had  been  forced 
to  resign  his  chair  in  an  African  Mohammedan 
college  because  of  his  advanced  ideas  !  Once  I 
discussed  with  a  group  of  miners  industrial  questions 
and  religion  from  twelve  to  three  in  the  morning, 
over  pots  of  beer,  in  a  little  inn  on  the  west  coast  of 
New  Zealand,  a  hundred  miles  from  anything  like  a 
town. 

It  is  quite  impossible  for  this  spreading  and 
better  informed  intelligence  to  bow  humbly  to  the 
ideas  of  an  earlier  generation.  It  is  going  to  think 
for  itself,  at  all  events.  The  old  traditions  must  be 
revised  throughout.  Revision  is  not  particularly 
dangerous  except  to  errors.  And  already  we  have 
discovered  that  our  political  and  religious  and 
social  oracles  have  been  teaching  a  good  deal  of 
error.  We  begin  to  suspect  that  many  things 


io  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

besides  the  divine  right  of  kings  and  the  eternal 
torment  of  the  wicked  may  not  be  strictly  accurate. 
We  had  better  reconsider  all  our  ways  of  living. 

The  second  permanent  strain  of  human  evolution 
is  the  development  of  fine  sentiment.  The  notion 
that  the  world  is  becoming  more  preponderantly 
intellectual,  and  that  progress  along  our  present 
lines  means  a  limitation  of  sentiment,  is  inaccurate. 
We  are  working  toward  a  healthy  equilibrium. 
Sentimental  people — those  in  whom  a  starving  of 
intellect  or  disuse  of  muscle  has  surcharged  the 
nervous  system  with  morbid  energy — will  become 
more  balanced,  more  intellectual.  Ancient  phrases 
and  modern  shibboleths  will  not  be  able  to  induce 
in  them  an  instinctive  warmth  or  agitation  :  they 
will  have  to  pass  the  bar  of  reason  before  they  reach 
what  one  might  call  the  executive  department  of 
personality.  But  sentiment — deep  and  healthy 
feeling — has  a  precious  use  in  life.  The  develop- 
ment of  fine  sentiment  is  as  necessary  as  the  cultiva- 
tion of  reason  to  the  advance  of  man  and  of  civilisa- 
tion. We  find  this  illustrated  in  all  the  older 
civilisations  when  they  reach  their  highest  point. 
We  are  picking  up  this  strain  of  development  to- 
day, and,  since  civilisation  is  now  too  widely  diffused 
ever  to  perish  again,  we  may  assume  that  it  will 
continue.  Now  this  finer  sentiment  of  our  time 
demands  the  revision  of  our  traditions  and  institu- 
tions no  less  imperiously  than  our  higher  intelligence 
does.  We  cannot  leave  behind  the  callousness 
and  brutality  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  at  the  same 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVOLT         n 

time  retain  medieval  practices.  Intellectually  and 
emotionally  we  are  improving,  and  we  must  expect 
that,  as  our  finer  powers  grow,  there  will  be  an 
increasing  demand  for  revision  and  reconstruction. 
As  Mr.  Watson  finely  says  : 

"  Guests  of  the  ages,  at  to-morrow's  door 
Why  shrink  we?    The  long  track  behind  us  lies, 
The  lamps  gleam  and  the  music  throbs  before, 
Bidding  us  enter ;  and  I  count  him  wise 
Who  loves  so  well  man's  noble  memories 
He  needs  must  love  man's  nobler  hopes  yet  more." 

This  is,  I  think,  a  correct  analysis  of  the  innovating 
spirit  of  modern  times.  These  general  considera- 
tions to  which  it  is  due  are  quite  beyond  discussion. 
One  feels  that  one  is  almost  perpetrating  platitudes 
in  describing  them.  In  fact,  we  would  to-day  find 
only  a  negligible  number  of  people  who  oppose 
progress  and  innovation  altogether.  They  usually 
oppose  it  in  one  or  two  departments  of  life,  and  quite 
warmly  applaud  it  in  others.  A  Socialist-Ritualist 
clergyman,  for  instance,  fiercely  demands  advance 
in  the  economic  field,  yet  fences  his  own  department 
of  life  with  the  most  rigorous  warnings  against 
innovating  trespassers.  A  Rationalist-Individualist 
feels  that  the  Church  is  the  most  obvious  and  urgent 
field  for  innovation,  and  at  the  same  time  guards  his 
economic  world  against  it  with  a  flaming  sword. 
A  Suffragist  pours  fiery  scorn  on  our  obstinate 
conservatism  in  regard  to  the  franchise,  and  then 
discovers  an  even  more  obstinate  and  entirely  sacred 
conservatism  when  other  women  claim  something 


12  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

more  than  political  emancipation.  It  is  this  very 
general  sectarianism  which  compels  us  to  review 
the  philosophy  of  revolt.  These  principles  apply 
to  the  whole  of  life.  All  our  institutions  must  be 
critically  examined.  The  searchlight  will  not  injure 
them  if  they  are  sound. 

But  how  comes  this  sweetly  reasonable  philosophy 
to  be  converted  into  that  passion  for  reform,  that 
mordant  and  exasperating  attack  on  institutions, 
which  gives  a  special  complexion  to  the  literature 
of  our  time  ?  For  precisely  the  same  reason  as  the 
invisible  electric  current  leaps  into  incandescence 
when  it  passes  through  the  sluggish  particles  of 
the  filament  of  carbon  or  tungsten  :  resistance. 
The  old  faith  is  growing  dim  in  our  minds,  and  we 
have  a  suspicion  that  the  thousands  of  men  and 
women  who,  each  night,  terminate  a  life  of  pain  or 
struggle  or  burden,  will  never  see  the  sun  rise  again, 
on  this  or  any  other  planet.  We  know  that  every 
decade  in  which  we  put  off,  with  worn  and  hollow 
phrases,  the  abandonment  of  old  errors,  sees  another 
generation  pass  away  with  just  the  same  scars  and 
traces  of  pain  as  those  which  scored  the  hearts  of 
the  dead  two,  and  four,  and  six  thousand  years 
ago.  We  are  vividly  conscious  that,  quite  apart 
from  the  myriads  whose  lives  were  embittered  by 
poverty,  or  war,  or  a  galling  marriage-yoke,  or  the 
tyranny  of  some  old  tradition,  there  are  further 
and  vaster  myriads  who,  whatever  comfort  they 
knew,  might  have  been  far  happier,  and  now  the 
sun  has  gone  down  on  them  for  ever.  There  is 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVOLT         13 

real  and  very  serious  ground  for  impatience.  The 
acreage  of  squalor  and  misery  and  grossness  is  still 
appalling,  and  on  every  land  lies  the  crushing 
burden  of  militarism ;  and  this  fearful  visitation  of 
war  reminds  us  of  the  incalculable  periodic  cost  of 
our  folly.  The  soil  of  the  planet  is  wet  with  blood 
and  tears,  and  a  great  part  of  this  inhuman  rain 
might  be  arrested.  Much  has  been  done  :  it  is  just 
that  which  stings.  You  cannot  look  back  on  the 
darkness  from  which  the  race  has  issued  without 
perceiving  that  man  has  the  power  to  transform 
the  face  of  the  earth  :  without  entertaining  a 
reasoned  and  coldly  intellectual  conviction  that  a 
day  will  yet  dawn  on  this  planet  when  laughter, 
as  of  children  on  May  morning,  will  ring  from  pole 
to  pole,  and  life,  for  all  its  work,  will  be  a  holiday. 
And  when  this  reasoned  and  just  belief  encounters 
the  sullen  or  selfish  indifference  of  men  and  women 
to  their  creative  power,  their  insensitiveness  to  the 
evils  that  they  or  their  fellows  endure,  it  glows  and 
spits  fire. 

It  is  quite  easy  to  apologise  for  strong  language  : 
much  easier  than  to  justify  the  general  lack  of  it. 
And  this  impatience  cannot  be  rebuked  by  reminding 
us  that  the  remedy  of  some  of  our  ills  is  very  obscure  ; 
because  the  majority  of  people  are  indifferent  to 
the  very  idea  of  reform.  They  shoulder  burdens 
which  they  might  at  any  moment  lay  aside  for 
ever.  Some  of  the  greatest  reforms  that  are  pressed 
on  us  are  not  obscured  by  any  serious  controversy. 
Yet  in  every  civilised  nation  the  mass  of  the  people 


14  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

are  inert  and  indifferent.  Some  even  make  a 
pretence  of  justifying  their  inertness.  Why,  they 
ask,  should  we  stir  at  all  ?  Is  there  such  a  thing 
as  a  duty  to  improve  the  earth  ?  What  is  the 
meaning  or  purpose  of  life  ?  Or  has  it  a  purpose  ? 

One  generally  finds  that  this  kind  of  reasoning  is 
merely  a  piece  of  controversial  athletics  or  a  thin 
excuse  for  idleness.  People  tell  you  that  the 
conflict  of  science  and  religion — it  would  be  better 
to  say,  the  conflict  of  modern  culture  and  ancient 
traditions — has  robbed  life  of  its  plain  significance. 
The  men  who,  like  Tolstoi,  seriously  urge  this  point 
fail  to  appreciate  the  modern  outlook  on  life. 
Certainly  modern  culture — science,  history,  philo- 
sophy, and  art — finds  no  purpose  in  life  :  that  is  to 
say,  no  purpose  eternally  fixed  and  to  be  discovered 
by  man.  A  great  chemist  said  a  few  years  ago  that 
he  could  imagine  "  a  series  of  lucky  accidents  " — 
the  chance  blowing  by  the  wind  of  certain  chemicals 
into  pools  on  the  primitive  earth — accounting  for 
the  first  appearance  of  life ;  and  one  might  not 
unjustly  sum  up  the  influences  which  have  lifted 
those  early  germs  to  the  level  of  conscious  beings 
as  a  similar  series  of  lucky  accidents. 

But  it  is  sheer  affectation  to  say  that  this  de- 
moralises us.  If  there  is  no  purpose  impressed  on 
the  universe,  or  prefixed  to  the  development  of 
humanity,  it  follows  only  that  humanity  may  choose 
its  own  purpose  and  set  up  its  own  goal ;  and  the 
most  elementary  sense  of  order  will  teach  us  that 
this  choice  must  be  social,  not  merely  individual. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVOLT         15 

In  whatever  measure  ill-controlled  individuals  may 
yield  to  personal  impulses  or  attractions,  the  aim 
of  the  race  must  be  a  collective  aim.  I  do  not  mean 
an  austere  demand  of  self-sacrifice  from  the  in- 
dividual, but  an  adjustment — as  genial  and  generous 
as  possible — of  individual  variations  for  common 
good.  Otherwise  life  becomes  discordant  and 
futile,  and  the  pain  and  waste  react  on  each  in- 
dividual. So  we  raise  again,  in  the  twentieth  century, 
the  old  question  of  "  the  greatest  good,"  which  men 
discussed  in  the  Stoa  Poikile  and  the  suburban 
groves  of  Athens,  in  the  cool  atria  of  patrician 
mansions  on  the  Palatine  and  the  Pincian,  in  the 
Museum  at  Alexandria,  and  the  schools  which  Omar 
Khayyam  frequented,  in  the  straw-strewn  schools 
of  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  opulent  chambers  of 
Cosmo  de'  Medici. 

We  answer,  as  men  did  in  all  those  earlier  debates, 
according  to  our  temperament.  One  says  culture, 
another  character,  another  happiness,  another 
pleasure,  another  efficiency.  This  discussion  is 
often  a  mere  exercise  of  wit,  and  very  often  we  use  a 
quite  arbitrary  standard  in  fixing  what  is  "best," 
or  the  greatest  good.  Probably  the  modern  mind 
will  put  to  itself  the  plain  question  :  "  What  is  the 
best  purpose  for  the  race,  in  its  own  interest,  to 
adopt  ?  "  As  we  are  not  now  clear  that  there  are 
any  other  interests  to  be  consulted,  this  is  the  obvious 
form  of  the  question.  And  when  we  do  put  it  in 
this  form,  the  old  conflict  begins  to  disappear.  We 
see  that  a  comprehensive  ideal,  embracing  all  the 


16  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

classical  answers,  commends  itself.  We  want  more 
— we  want  as  much  as  possible — culture,  character, 
happiness,  pleasure,  and  efficiency.  We  want  a 
quicker  and  fuller  development  of  man's  highest 
and  richest  resources.  But,  if  you  look  closely  into 
it,  there  is  one  ultimate  and  commanding  element 
in  this  broad  ideal.  It  is  happiness.  Culture  is 
a  necessity  of  the  race  and  luxury  of  the  few. 
Character  is  supremely  important,  but  you  have 
now  to  prove  to  men  that  it  is  important.  We  do 
not  bow  any  longer  to  arbitrary  commands  and 
categorical  imperatives  and  Stoic  laws.  We  have 
to  be  convinced  that  the  cultivation  of  a  high  type 
of  character  will  lessen  suffering  and  brighten  the 
earth.  Pleasure,  again,  is,  as  Epicurus  insisted, 
only  a  part  of  a  large  ideal  of  happiness.  There 
is,  in  fact,  no  ground  on  which  you  can  appeal  to 
the  mass  of  men  to-day  in  favour  of  cultivation  or 
idealism  except  this  ground  that  it  makes  for 
greater  happiness  :  and  on  that  ground  you  may 
safely  appeal  to  the  whole  race. 

Sometimes,  when  you  ascend  the  slopes  of  a 
range  of  hills, — the  idea  occurred  to  me  during  a 
walk  from  Chamonix  to  Montanvert, — the  mists 
close  round  you,  and  the  guiding  peaks  and  con- 
tours are  lost.  Then,  perhaps,  some  point  breaks 
through  the  clouds,  and  you  stride  on  confidently. 
This  must  apply  to  the  most  sceptical  or  nebulous 
mind  of  our  generation.  The  old  dream  of  a  co- 
operative effort  to  improve  life,  to  bring  happiness 
to  as  many  minds  of  mortals  as  we  can  reach, 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVOLT         17 

shines  above  all  the  mists  of  the  day.  Through 
the  ruins  of  creeds  and  philosophies,  which  have 
for  ages  disdained  it,  we  are  retracing  our  steps 
toward  that  height — just  as  the  Athenians  did  two 
thousand  years  ago.  It  rests  on  no  metaphysic, 
no  sacred  legend,  no  disputable  tradition — nothing 
that  scepticism  can  corrode  or  advancing  knowledge 
undermine.  Its  foundations  are  the  fundamental 
and  unchanging  impulses  of  our  nature.  Its 
features  are  as  clear  and  attractive  to  the  child  as 
to  the  philosopher.  Philosophers  will,  of  course, 
declare  it  superficial ;  but  we  may  remind  them 
that  all  their  supposed  deeper  probing  of  reality, 
from  Pythagoras  to  Bergson,  has  ended  in  a  con- 
fusion of  contradictory  guesses.  Churchmen  will 
declare  with  horror  that  it  is  "  materialistic  "  ; 
and  we  may  remind  them  that  for  fifteen  centuries 
they  have  taught  Europe  to  place  its  highest  good 
in  happiness.  If  the  happiness  they  promised  is 
getting  doubtful,  we  make  sure  of  what  we  can. 
In  truth,  however,  no  nobler  aim  ever  inspired 
action,  and  none  is  so  fitted  to  appeal  to  modern 
man.  It  is,  in  fact,  the  mainspring  of  nearly  all 
the  progressive  activity  of  our  time.  The  more 
doubtful  all  else  becomes,  the  more  determined 
men  and  women  are  to  be  happy  in  this  world. 
Thrones  and  creeds  and  institutions,  even  moral 
codes,  are  brought  to  judgment  to-day  before  that 
ideal.  It  is  more  profitable  to  judge  the  living 
than  the  dead. 

This  ideal  is  the  chief  inspiration  of  the  rebellious 
3 


i8  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

temper  of  our  age.  The  revolt  which  burns  in  so 
much  of  the  abler  literature  of  our  time  is  an  un- 
selfish revolt,  or  non-selfish  revolt :  it  is  an  outcome 
of  that  larger  spirit  which  conceives  the  self  to 
be  a  part  of  the  general  social  organism,  and  it  is 
therefore  neither  egoistic  nor  altruistic.  It  finds  a 
sanction  in  the  new  intelligence,  and  an  inspiration 
in  the  finer  sentiments,  of  our  generation,  but  the 
glow  which  chiefly  illumines  it  is  the  glow  of  the 
great  vision  of  a  happier  earth.  It  speaks  of  the 
claims  of  truth  and  justice,  and  assails  untruth  and 
injustice,  for  these  are  elemental  principles  of 
social  life  ;  but  it  appeals  more  confidently  to  the 
warmer  sympathy  which  is  linking  the  scattered 
children  of  the  race,  and  it  urges  all  to  co-operate 
in  the  restriction  of  suffering  and  the  creation  of 
happiness.  The  advance  guard  of  the  race,  the 
men  and  women  in  whom  mental  alertness  is 
associated  with  fine  feeling,  cry  that  they  have 
reached  Pisgah's  slope  ;  and  in  increasing  numbers 
men  and  women  are  pressing  on  to  see  if  it  be  really 
the  Promised  Land.  That  is  the  spirit  of  the 
reform-movement  of  our  times.  Popes  anathema- 
tise our  age,  and  the  clergy  of  all  sects  bemoan  its 
"  materialism,"  yet  it  is  exulting  in  a  wider  and 
higher  idealism  than  any  that  ever  yet  stirred  the 
heart  of  man.  For  we  now  know  from  what  dark 
and  brutal  origins  we  came,  and  we  feel  that,  if  we 
advance  only  as  we  are  advancing,  we  may  reach  any 
height  that  any  prophet  ever  yet  saw  in  his  visions. 
It  is  very  difficult  to  avoid  what  seem  to  be 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVOLT         19 

rhetorical  phrases  in  describing  this  age  of  ours  : 
the  age  which  some  profess  to  find  prosy  and 
materialistic  in  comparison  with  the  earlier  age 
when  a  handful  of  plethoric  land-owners  ruled 
England,  and  little  children  worked  in  filthy  rooms 
for  twelve  hours  a  day,  and  cut-throats,  in  most 
charming  costumes,  slew  each  other  in  the  fields  of 
London.  I  have  not  the  least  desire  to  use 
rhetoric  ;  I  do  but  express  my  feeling,  and  what  I 
take  to  be  the  feeling  of  "  advanced  "  people  gener- 
ally, as  it  comes  to  me.  But  in  this  poetry  there 
is  the  solidity  of  scientific  prose.  Some  time  ago 
I  sailed  slowly  toward  Teneriffe  from  the  south. 
Eighty  miles  away,  on  a  fine  morning,  the  summit 
of  the  Peak  showed  its  delicate  contour  in  the 
clouds,  hardly  distinguishable  from  them.  We 
thought  it  an  illusion,  a  simulating  cloud,  because 
far  below  the  summit  the  blue  sky  seemed  to  stretch 
from  horizon  to  horizon.  The  Peak  floated  in  the 
air.  But,  as  we  drew  nearer,  the  blue  band  below 
it  grew  thinner,  and  at  last  it  disclosed  the  massive 
bulk  of  the  supporting  mountain. 

Speaking  as  a  sober  student  of  history  and  science, 
I  say  that  this  dream  of  a  brighter  and  happier  earth 
rests  on  no  less  solid  a  foundation.  We  see  primi- 
tive man,  blindly,  and  with  infinite  slowness,  move 
towards  civilisation  :  we  see  civilisation  slowly, 
with  many  a  tragic  interruption,  advance  toward 
the  modern  age  :  and  now  we  see  the  pace  quicken 
enormously,  and  we  find  a  new  consciousness  of 
power  and  a  deliberate  aim  at  higher  things  bear  the 


20  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

race  onward.     The  reformer's  belief  in  the  future 
is  a  scientific  deduction  from  the  past. 

The  failure  of  the  mass  of  people  to  co-operate 
in  the  realisation  of  this  ideal  is  due,  not  to  indolence 
or  stupidity,  but  to  the  obsessing  influence  of  the 
old  traditions.  They  choke  the  fires  of  the  mind  : 
they  make  us  insensible  to  the  real  enormity  of 
a  great  deal  of  our  social  arrangements.  Hence  it 
is  that  the  reformer's  appeal  is  cast  so  frequently 
in  a  negative  or  aggressive  form.  The  most  powerful 
thing  in  our  world  is,  not  truth,  but  untruth  ;  and 
the  most  important  thing  in  the  world  is  to  assail 
it.  "  Great  is  truth,  and  it  will  prevail,"  said  an 
ancient  writer.  But  the  civilisation  which  gave 
birth  to  that  sentiment  died,  and  all  its  promising 
young  truths  perished  with  it,  and  Europe  fell  under 
the  rule  of  lies  for  more  than  a  thousand  years. 
Untruth  is  millennia  older  than  truth.  Its  roots 
run  deep  into  the  flesh  of  the  heart,  while  the  rootlets 
of  truth  are  struggling  for  a  frail  clasp  in  the 
intellect.  Great  is  untruth,  and  it  will  prevail — 
unless  it  is  attacked  unceasingly.  No  untruth  ever 
died  a  natural  death.  Being  the  sacred  truth  of 
yesterday,  it  is  usually  entrenched  in  powerful 
corporations,  embodied  in  the  law  and  life  of 
nations,  enshrined  in  the  tenacious  affections  of 
the  millions.  At  one  time  you  incurred  sentence  of 
death  if  you  challenged  it :  now  you  incur  slander, 
misrepresentation,  and  mockery.  The  race  has  been 
made  docile  to  it  by  a  kind  of  negative  Eugenic 
---perhaps  we  ought  to  say  Cacogenic — selection. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  REVOLT         21 

Yet  nearly  everything  which  the  majority  venerate 
as  truth  to-day  began  its  career  as  heresy  and  will 
end  it  as  lie. 

So  the  first  task  of  the  well-wisher  of  mankind  is 
to  distinguish  truth  from  untruth  in  our  traditions. 
The  story  of  man  is  a  long  story  of  the  tyranny 
of  consecrated  shams,  with  occasional  intervals  of 
rebellion  and  advance  to  a  higher  stage.  Rebellion 
is  the  salt  of  the  earth.  There  comes  a  time  in  the 
history  of  every  civilisation  when  the  mind  of 
a  few  rises  high  enough  to  survey  critically  that 
stream  of  traditions  in  which  the  majority  lazily 
float.  Then  comes  the  inevitable  revolt ;  hence 
the  close  kinship  which  we  feel  across  the  ages  with 
"  the  Preacher,"  with  Socrates,  with  Omar  Khayyam, 
with  Erasmus,  with  Moliere.  We  are  at  the  same 
stage  of  evolution,  with  the  difference  that  we 
moderns  have  an  immense  mass  of  knowledge 
of  history  and  pre-history  to  aid  us  in  testing  the 
value  of  our  traditions.  Already  we  have  discarded 
scores  of  old  dogmas  :  in  religion,  politics,  education, 
law,  and  every  department  of  our  common  life.  It 
would  be  folly  to  attempt  to  fence  off  any  province 
of  our  life  from  this  critical  scrutiny.  And  since 
we  obstinately  retain  many  traditions  which  a  very 
high  proportion  of  properly  educated  people  regard 
as  unsound  and  mischievous,  since  these  traditions 
are  the  chief  obstacle  to  the  advance  of  the  race, 
one  of  the  most  pressing  needs  of  our  time  is,  surely, 
a  stern  campaign  for  the  abolition  of  this  tyranny 
of  shams. 


CHAPTER   II 

THE    MILITARY   SHAM 

IN  the  original  conception  of  this  work  militarism 
was  selected  as  the  first  sham  to  be  assailed  because 
it  is  at  once  the  most  costly  and  the  least  excusable. 
The  way  to  remove  many  of  the  blots  on  our 
civilisation  is  by  no  means  plain.  A  dozen  con- 
flicting theories  confront  you,  and  each  has  a 
sufficiently  large  body  of  adherents  to  entitle  it  to 
consideration.  But  there  are  others  in  regard  to 
which  a  large  and  practical  measure  of  agreement 
has  been  reached.  Here  we  do  not  need  so  much 
the  subtle  dissection  of  arguments  and  proposals 
as  the  kindling  of  that  ardent  and  imperious  senti- 
ment which  spurs  a  man  or  a  race  to  action.  The 
evil  is  recognised  :  the  way  to  remedy  it  is  sufficiently 
clear.  What  we  need  is,  in  the  mass  of  the  people, 
that  fiery  resentment  of  a  hated  tyranny  which  will 
shake  the  lie  from  its  throne. 

The  first,  the  gravest,  the  most  flagrant  and  most 
vivid  in  our  minds  at  the  moment  of  these  obvious 
shams  is  war,  with  the  military  system  which  it 
involves.  Here  there  is  no  sacred  legend  of  a  divine 
origin  to  confuse  the  minds  of  the  ignorant.  There 


THE  MILITARY  SHAM  23 

are  legends  of  divine  approval,  it  is  true,  but  the  clergy 
do  not  press  them  and  they  have  little  influence.  War 
is  a  practice  or  institution  which  we  clearly  trace  to 
the  wild  impulses  and  imperfect  social  forms  of  early 
man  :  even  to  the  sheer  passion  of  the  beast  that 
was  still  strong  in  him.  No  sophistry  can  obscure 
this  bestial  origin.  We  men  and  women  of  the 
twentieth  century  cling  to  one  feature,  at  least,  of 
an  age  on  which  we  look  back  with  high  disdain  : 
an  age  with  which  we  would  bitterly  resent  any 
comparison  in  point  of  intelligence  and  feeling.  We 
may  try  to  gild  it  with  glittering  phrases  about  a 
nation's  honour,  but  we  know,  all  the  while,  that 
the  honour  of  a  nation  no  more  demands  that  it 
shall  dye  its  hands  in  the  blood  of  a  sister-nation 
than  the  honour  of  an  individual  requires  so  barbaric 
a  consolation. 

We  maintain  this  sham  in  an  age  when  mechanical 
progress  has  made  such  strides  that  it  has  turned 
the  industry  of  war  into  our  chief  and  most  oppressive 
occupation.  We  cannot,  with  all  our  sacrifices, 
find  the  means  to  carry  out  most  urgent  reforms 
in  our  social  life  ;  we  cannot  put  flesh  on  the  bones 
and  light  in  the  eyes  of  poor  children,  or  ease  the 
lives  of  worn  workers  and  helpless  widows  ;  because 
we  need  these,  and  even  greater  resources,  to  sharpen 
the  sabre  for  our  neighbour's  throat  and  enlarge 
the  calibre  of  the  tube  that  will  scatter  a  hail  of 
death.  We  have  for  years  stood  in  such  attitude 
confronting  each  other,  we  civilised  nations,  that 
on  any  day  of  any  year  the  bugle  might  peal,  and 


24  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

the  soil  and  seas  of  Europe  be  reddened  with  blood, 
and  the  pain  which  knows  no  remedy  shoot  through 
millions  of  homes  ;  and  now  the  tragedy  has  opened , 
grimmer  than  the  dourest  prophet  had  ever  pictured 
it.  Why  have  we  done  this  ?  Ultimately,  because 
man,  the  primeval  savage,  knowing  nothing  of  our 
systems  of  justice,  laid  it  down  that  the  knife  or  the 
club  was  the  guardian  of  a  man's  honour  or  property  : 
proximately,  because  we  of  this  highly  cultivated 
age  enthrone  still  one  of  the  most  ghastly  shams 
which  barbarism  succeeded  in  enforcing  on  civilisa- 
tion. 

I  have  described  it  as  a  characteristic  of  our  age 
that  we  are  rising  above  the  stream  of  traditions 
which  flows  from  civilisation  to  civilisation,  and  are 
discovering  that  some  of  its  sources  are  tainted. 
Now  in  the  case  of  warfare  this  scrutiny  of  the  origin 
and  course  of  our  traditions  is  comparatively  easy. 
What  we  have  discovered  is  so  well  known,  and  so 
little  disputed,  that  it  need  hardly  be  related.  It 
may  be  useful  to  state,  at  least,  that  very  early 
man  was  probably  not  a  combative  and  bloodthirsty 
savage.  He  lives  to-day  in  such  lowly  peoples  as 
the  Veddahs  and  the  Yahgans,  and  they  are  generally 
peaceful  and  averse  from  brawling.  In  this  primitive 
man,  however,  there  slumbered  all  the  impulsive 
passion  of  earlier  ancestors,  and  it  was  inevitable 
that  a  cultural  rise  should  awaken  it.  When  men 
became  organised  in  tribes,  when  they  became 
hunters  and  tillers  of  the  soil,  when  they  increased 
and  wandered  far  afield,  quarrels  arose  over  women 


25 

and  hunting  grounds  and  other  necessaries,  and  the 
institution  of  warfare  was  established.  Within  the 
tribe  there  was  already  some  kind  of  court,  as  a 
rule,  before  which  a  man  could  bring  his  neighbour 
for  wrong-doing.  For  the  quarrel  between  tribe 
and  tribe  there  was  no  judge  :  the  verdict  lay  with 
the  heavier  weapon  and  the  stouter  arm.  Hence, 
the  higher  the  intelligence  of  the  tribe,  the  more 
deadly  and  widespread  became  the  carnage. 
Ferocity  became  a  useful  social  quality — a  virtue, 
indeed,  the  supreme  virtue,  or  virtus  (manliness) — 
and  the  primitive  genius  was  expended  in  making 
more  cruel  and  lacerating  the  barbs  of  the  arrow 
and  the  spear.  The  administration  of  justice 
advanced,  and  a  time  came  when  private  vengeance, 
and  even  family  feuds,  were  strictly  forbidden  and 
regarded  as  crimes.  But,  while  ten  men  might  not 
go  to  war  against  ten  men,  ten  thousand  would 
march  out,  with  the  sonorous  blessing  of  their 
priests,  to  the  more  barbaric  butchery  of  war  against 
ten  thousand.  The  mind  had  to  grow  larger,  the 
heart  more  human,  before  the  reign  of  justice  would 
be  acknowledged  in  the  relations  of  masses  of  men 
to  each  other  as  well  as  in  the  relations  of  individuals. 
With  the  dawn  of  civilisation  a  terrible  paradox 
occurred.  Warfare  was  not  abolished,  but  made 
more  destructive.  Again  we  find  this  a  natural 
and  intelligible  development.  Each  early  civilisa- 
tion found  itself  surrounded  by  barbaric  tribes, 
with  which  no  compact  of  justice  could  be  estab- 
lished or  trusted.  The  great  Stoic  humanitarians  of 


26  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

Rome,  who  preached  the  brotherhood  of  men  and 
denounced  violence,  dared  not,  in  the  interest  of 
civilisation,  plead  disarmament.  There  were,  of 
course,  moral  sophisms  in  support  of  this  plain  need. 
The  profit  of  aggression,  the  prestige  of  conquering, 
were  adorned  with  phrases  akin  to  our  "  white 
man's  burden."  Yet  it  is  true  that  until  modern 
times  warfare  could  not  have  been  abolished  without 
grave  danger  to  civilisation.  The  crime  of  warfare 
became  a  crime  only  in  these  later  centuries.  Now 
that  fully  three-fourths  of  the  race  are  gathered  into 
civilised  states,  a  compact  of  justice,  an  international 
tribunal  with  an  international  executive,  is  possible  ; 
and  we  are  guilty,  either  of  a  base  hypocrisy  or  a 
ghastly  insensibility  to  our  gravest  interests,  in 
refusing  to  set  up  that  compulsory  international 
tribunal. 

No  writer  will  be  expected  to  discuss  patiently 
to-day  the  pitiful  sophistry  with  which,  until 
yesterday,  a  few  defended  the  retention  of  the 
military  institution.  Germany  resounded  with, 
and  England  and  France  and  the  United  States 
echoed  here  and  there,  the  pompous  and  hollow 
claims  of  its  Treitschkes  and  Moltkes.  War  was 
a  splendid  moral  discipline  :  an  institution 
appointed  by  Providence  for  purging  the  race  of 
sloth  and  materialism,  for  restoring  chivalry  and 
brightening  the  shield  of  honour  and  rebuking 
selfishness.  War  has  grimly  belied  its  apologists 
and  we  need  notice  them  no  longer.  It  has  be- 
trayed one  of  the  greatest  nations  of  modern  times 


THE  MILITARY  SHAM  27 

into  horrors  and   outrages  which   are   a   supreme 
and  eternal  mockery  of  their  moral  claims  for  it. 

Others  more  justly  claimed  that  war  develops 
the  virility,  the  endurance,  the  power  of  men.  The 
lesson  of  history,  they  said,  is  on  the  side  of  war  : 
the  great  empires  of  the  world  became  great  by  their 
heroism  and  sacrifices  on  the  field  of  battle.  Here 
we  must  distinguish  carefully.  It  is  obviously 
true  that  these  empires  became  big,  powerful,  and 
wealthy  by  war ;  and  if  any  nation  candidly  con- 
fesses that  it  relies  on  war  to  increase  its  territory, 
its  power,  and  its  wealth,  its  argument  is  unanswer- 
able. But  there  is  now  no  nation  in  the  world  that 
professes  to  maintain  an  army  and  a  navy  for 
the  purpose  of  aggression  and  expansion.  Even 
Germany,  which  undoubtedly  did  construct  its 
massive  armament  for  that  purpose,  had  not  the 
audacity  to  admit  it.  Defence  is  the  justifying 
title  and,  in  so  far  as  it  is  sincere,  it  is  a  just  title. 
If,  as  long  as  the  military  system  lasts,  an  army 
and  a  navy  of  a  certain  strength  are  required,  in  the 
judgment  of  appointed  experts,  for  the  defence  of 
a  country  and  its  institutions,  we  pay  our  share 
willingly  for  the  maintenance  of  such  an  army  and 
navy,  and  we  respect  our  soldiers  and  sailors.  I  do 
not  for  one  moment  advocate  the  disarmament  of 
one  nation  living  amidst  armed  neighbours  ;  and  a 
partial  disarmament,  or  an  insufficient  armament, 
is  the  surest  provocation  of  war.  My  point  is 
that,  since  the  world  has  reached  such  a  pitch  of 
moral  development  that  each  nation  now  professes 


28  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

to  arm  only  against  the  possible  aggression  of  a 
neighbour,  the  time  has  come  for  them  to  agree 
upon  the  infinitely  less  costly  and  more  reliable 
way  of  settling  their  possible  quarrels  as  individuals 
do.  Only  one  nation,  Germany,  seems  to  be  genuinely 
opposed  to  this,  not  so  much  from  native  malice 
of  character  as  from  very  serious  domestic  reasons 
for  aggression  :  and  a  perfect  opportunity  now 
arises  for  effectively  impressing  on  Germany  the 
fact  that  she  has  come  too  late  into  the  family 
of  Great  Powers  for  filibustering. 

As  to  the  development  of  physique  and  endurance 
and  discipline,  it  is  too  obvious  that  this  could  be 
attained  by  athletic  contests  which  are  at  present 
left  to  voluntary  interest  or  to  the  unattractive 
manoeuvres  of  professional  exploiters.  For  years 
I  have  followed  professional  football  with  keen 
pleasure,  and  I  was  interested  when,  at  the  out- 
break of  war,  men  cried  that  these  footballers  were 
the  most  superb  material  for  our  recruiting  agents. 
It  was  perfectly  true.  Any  State  which  is  sincerely 
eager  to  develop  the  physique  and  endurance  of 
its  citizens  can  do  it  by  the  use  of  devices  which 
will  provide  most  enjoyable  spectacles  and  national 
or  international  festivals  instead  of  periodic  orgies 
of  blood  and  tears.  The  defenders  of  war  must 
be  hard  pressed  for  argument  when  they,  plead  this 
necessity.  There  is,  moreover,  one  supreme  differ- 
ence between  war  and  athletics  as  instruments  of 
training.  War  destroys  what  it  creates  :  athletics 
keeps  its  men  among  our  citizens  and  breeders. 


THE  MILITARY  SHAM  29 

The  truth  is  that  the  whole  historical  argument 
for  war,  which  has  had  an  incalculable  influence  in 
the  education  of  Germany,  is  a  miserable  fallacy. 
The  real  lesson  of  history  is  that  militarism  has 
been  a  malignant  cancer,  transmitted  from  one 
empire  to  another,  and,  by  destroying  them,  it  has 
hundreds  of  times  suspended  the  advance  of  civilisa- 
tion. It  is  in  a  sense  a  fallacy  to  claim  that  any 
nation  became  great  by  war.  The  tribe  which  wins 
ascendancy  over  its  neighbours  does  so  because  it 
is  already  more  powerful,  more  numerous,  or  more 
fortunately  situated.  Then  comes  the  period  of 
expansion,  when,  as  we  admit,  greater  power  and 
wealth  and  territory  are  undoubtedly  won  by  the 
sword.  This  is  the  seductive  phase  of  history, 
leading  astray  men  like  Ruskin  as  well  as  men  like 
Mommsen  and  Niebuhr.  Let  us  admit  all  its 
glories.  Moral  and  humanitarian  excesses  are  just 
as  mischievous  as  immoral  excesses.  As  a  result 
of  this  successful  war  and  expansion,  the  older 
empires  were  enabled  to  foster  art,  to  protect  their 
growing  culture,  to  civilise  vast  stretches  of  the  earth 
that  might  otherwise  have  lain  uncivilised  for  ages. 

Most  assuredly  war  has,  in  this  sense,  been  a 
most  valuable  influence  in  spreading  civilisation 
over  the  earth.  What  modern  historians  forget 
is  that  the  conditions  have  totally  changed.  Your 
empire  is  no  longer  surrounded  by  myriads  of 
barbarians  whom  you  must  conquer  before  you  can 
civilise.  Germany  has  been  forced  to  colour  its 
aggression  by  the  stupid  pretence  that  it  had  a 


30  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

higher  Kultur  than  its  neighbours,  and  that,  in 
endeavouring  to  impose  it  on  them,  it  was  carrying 
out  the  "  law  of  history."  It  is  a  pity  that  science 
and  history  ever  adopted  the  word  "  law."  What 
they  mean,  of  course,  is  only  a  summary  of  the  way 
in  which  things  uniformly  occurred  in  certain 
conditions.  Now  that  the  conditions  are  entirely 
changed,  the  laws  have  no  application.  One  might 
suggest  that  we  still  need  armies  to  conquer  and 
civilise  the  outstanding  barbaric  peoples.  We  do 
not.  We  need  an  international  armed  force  to 
check  their  aggressions,  but  there  are  other  and 
better  methods  of  civilising  them.  In  any  case, 
this  plea  has  no  relation  to  the  vast  armies  and 
navies  and  the  bloody  wars  we  actually  endure. 

But  it  is  the  next  and  final  phase  of  militarism 
which  the  historical  apologists  for  war  have  so 
grossly  overlooked  :  the  phase  when  the  best  stocks 
of  the  old  race  are  extinguished  on  the  battlefield 
or  enervated  by  the  luxurious  idleness  which  was 
bought  by  the  spoils  of  war.  Is  it  not  proverbial 
how  the  great  families  which  had  led  the  invincible 
legions  of  Rome  dwindled  in  five  centuries  into  a 
sickly  cluster  of  parasites  or  wholly  disappeared  ? 
Is  it  not  notorious  that  it  was,  in  the  first  century 
of  the  present  era,  the  healthier  provincial  stocks 
which  saved  Rome  from  destruction,  or  postponed 
its  destruction  ?  And  do  we  not  find,  as  time  goes 
on,  men  from  more  and  more  distant  provinces, 
in  the  end  men  from  the  barbaric  fringes  of  the 
Empire,  coming  to  lead  its  legions  and  support  its 


THE  MILITARY  SHAM  31 

falling  eagles  ?  All  through  Roman  history  war 
presents  itself  to  the  mind  of  the  candid  historian 
as  a  vampire  living  on  the  best  blood  of  the  people. 
Only  a  continuous  supply  of  fresh  blood  and  stout 
frames  from  the  subject  peoples  keeps  up  the 
illusion  of  an  "  eternal  Rome."  It  is  only  the  shell 
that  lasts.  The  people  of  Rome  itself  and  of  the 
neighbouring  plains,  from  which  the  old  legionaries 
had  come,  were  soon  exhausted.  Italy  in  turn  was 
exhausted  and  made  desolate.  Then  Gaul  and 
Spain  and  Africa,  and  Thrace  and  Dacia  and  the 
more  distant  provinces,  were  sucked  bloodless  and 
resourceless ;  and  the  great  shell  of  an  empire 
fell  with  a  crash  under  the  blows  of  Goth  and  Vandal. 
It  is  a  clerical  myth  that  Roman  strength  was 
sapped  by  vice.  Its  blood  was  drunk  by  war. 

These  things  Niebuhr  and  Mommsen  forgot 
when  they  proposed  to  Germany  the  splendid 
example  of  Rome  ;  and  history  will  have  its  revenge 
on  its  great  interpreters  by  recording  the  close 
in  tragedy  of  this  new  imperialism  which  they  in- 
spired. Other  historians  boldly  quoted  Greece — 
Alexander  of  Macedon — and  the  fallacy  is  even  more 
piteous.  Athens  assuredly  did  not  become  great 
by  war.  Its  most  brilliant  period  opens  after  a 
crushing  and  devastating  reverse,  and  its  achieve- 
ments were  entirely  due  to  its  statesmen,  its  artists, 
and  its  thinkers.  But  from  the  moment  when  the 
shadow  of  the  Macedonian  empire  fell  on  it,  a  blight 
came  swiftly  over  its  culture.  Its  glory  departed 
for  ever  when  it  became  part  of  a  great  military 


32  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

power.  Greece,  as  a  whole,  was  impoverished  and 
ruined  by  war.  Sparta  itself,  one  of  the  most 
strenuous  military  powers  that  ever  lived,  is  a 
classical  proof  that  war  invigorates  only  to  destroy. 

To  whatever  nation  we  turn,  we  learn  the  same 
lesson  of  history.  Egypt  survived  the  strain,  owing 
to  the  constant  infusion  of  foreign  blood,  for  eight 
thousand  years,  but  sank  at  last  so  exhausted  that 
it  seems  almost  beyond  the  hope  of  reanimation. 
Assyria  and  Babylonia  were  prepared  for  destruction 
by  the  same  steady  drain  of  their  healthiest  blood- 
The  Hittites,  the  Lydians,  the  Phoenicians,  the 
Medes,  the  Persians  followed  the  same  course. 
From  the  first  founding  of  civilisation  in  the  valley 
of  the  Nile,  ten  thousand  years  ago,  war  has  brooded 
over  its  cities  and  cornfields,  and  has  time  after 
time  blighted  its  achievements  and  its  hopes.  It 
is  as  though  some  god  were  jealous  of  the  advance 
of  man,  and  maintained  on  the  earth  this  corroding 
pest  to  eat  into  the  life  of  each  successive  empire, 
and,  by  destroying  it,  to  interrupt  the  progress  of 
the  race. 

In  the  history  of  Europe  since  the  fall  of  Rome 
we  witness  the  same  human  tragedy.  I  do  not 
overlook  the  other  evil  influences,  such  as  fiscal 
disorder  and  industrial  parasitism,  which  have 
contributed  to  the  fall  of  empires,  but  the  share 
of  war  in  these  tragedies  was  incalculable.  The 
fate  of  early  England,  battling  against  invaders  and 
rent  by  internal  quarrels  for  centuries,  is  typical. 
The  greater  England  of  modern  times,  or  the  real 


THE  MILITARY  SHAM  33 

greatness  of  modern  England,  was  built  in  periods 
of  comparative  peace  by  merchants  and  manu- 
facturers and  scholars.  Over  the  whole  of  Europe 
the  vampire  still  brooded,  fastening  on  each  young 
nation  that  advanced  beyond  its  fellows.  The 
medieval  republics  of  Italy  were  wrecked  by  war. 
Holland  and  Portugal,  once  the  most  promising 
powers  of  Europe,  were  exhausted  by  it.  Not 
vice,  not  enervation,  not  a  dwindling  birth-rate, 
—which  are  rather  consequences  than  causes, — 
but  the  incessant  exhaustion  of  their  resources  on 
the  seas  and  the  battlefield  condemned  them  to 
decay.  Italy  fell  back  into  the  state  of  impotence 
which  gave  Austria  and  the  Papacy  their  ignoble 
opportunity.  Once  more  the  advance  of  civilisa- 
tion was  checked  by  the  jealous  god  of  war. 

It  is,  of  course,  true  that  warfare  produced  fine 
types  of  men  ;  but  for  every  Bayard  there  were 
ten  thousand  brutal  soldiers,  whose  march  across 
Europe  left  a  broad  track  of  rape  and  ruin.  It  is 
true  that  the  naval  or  military  successes  of  Venice 
and  Genoa  and  Florence  enabled  them  to  raise 
marble  palaces  and  to  foster  the  art  of  painters  and 
the  research  of  scholars  ;  but  it  is  equally  true  that 
prosperity  based  on  such  a  foundation  was  generally 
doomed.  The  example  of  medieval  Rome  shows 
that  a  military  basis  was  not  essential.  The  peoples 
from  whom  the  tribute  had  been  wrung  awaited 
their  hour — the  hour  when  the  vampire  had  sucked 
the  great  frame  weak  and  bloodless — and  then, 
by  the  same  law  of  might,  they  smote  the  oppressor. 
4 


34  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

The  historian  who  reads  the  whole  chronicle  of 
man  is  saddened  even  in  contemplating  a  nation's 
prosperity.  Amidst  the  cries  of  joy  and  triumph 
and  love  he  seems  to  hear  the  cynical  laughter  of 
the  war-god. 

I  need  not  follow  the  devastation  of  war  through 
the  later  history  of  Europe.  The  Thirty  Years 
War  laid  Germany  desolate,  and  postponed  its 
cultural  development  for  more  than  a  century. 
Spain,  Portugal,  and  Holland,  which  had  won  empire 
by  the  sword,  lost  it  to  the  sword.  The  Ottoman 
Empire  sank  into  weakness  and  shame.  All  this 
was  due,  in  the  first  place,  to  what  Count  von 
Moltke  calls  "  the  institution  of  God  "  :  the  in- 
stitution without  which  "  the  world  would  fall 
into  decay  and  lose  itself  in  materialism."  Even 
while  he  spoke  Germany  was  prospering  by  peace 
as  few  nations  had  ever  prospered  before.  Could 
there  possibly  be  a  more  perverse  reading  of  the 
lesson  of  history  ?  Could  there  be  a  greater  mockery 
conceived  than  to  imagine  God  smiling  on  this 
blood-reeking  Europe,  or  to  call  this  a  spiritual 
triumph  over  materialism  ?  Is  any  man,  with  the 
present  desolation  of  Europe  before  him,  tempted  to 
place  the  soldier  above  the  artist,  the  scientist,  or 
the  engineer  as  an  instrument  of  progress  ?  Let  us 
grant  militarism  all  that  it  has  really  achieved. 
It  remains,  in  the  mind  of  the  historian,  the  greatest 
curse  that  mankind  has  endured  since  the  primitive 
humans  were  first  gathered  into  tribes  and  disputed 
each  other's  "  spheres  of  influence." 


THE  MILITARY  SHAM  35 

Blind  to  this  ghastly  tragedy  of  history,  we  have 
maintained  and  cherished  militarism  until  it  has 
brought  on  us  in  turn  the  greatest  catastrophe 
that  a  single  year  ever  embraced.  Probably  our 
grandchildren,  probably  many  a  child  that  gazes 
now  with  wide  eyes  on  our  troops  and  banners,  will 
look  back  on  our  civilisation  with  amazement. 
They  may  smile  at  a  drill-sergeant  like  Count  von 
Moltke  telling  illiterate  rustics  of  the  glorious 
moral  qualities  which  war  develops  in — the  men 
who  traversed  Belgium !  But  we  civilians  will 
honestly  puzzle  them.  We  had  the  history  of  the 
world  unfolded  before  us,  and  we  saxv  this  institu- 
tion plainly  emerging  from  barbarism  and  leaving 
its  bloody  and  defacing  splashes  on  every  page  of 
the  chronicle.  We  traced  the  evolution  of  justice, 
and  we  saw  that,  as  it  was  a  mighty  gain  to  men 
when  tribunals  were  set  up  to  adjudicate  on  the 
quarrels  of  individuals  or  clans,  it  would  be  a  far 
mightier  gain  to  erect  a  tribunal  for  settling  the 
quarrels  of  nations.  Yet  we  took  this  stupid  burden 
from  the  shoulders  of  our  fathers,  and  we  made  it 
incalculably  heavier  for  ourselves  and  our  children. 

I  need  not  set  out  the  weight  of  the  burden  in 
figures.  When  I  first  wrote  this  page  I  dilated  on 
the  seventy  million  sterling  per  year  which  we 
English  were  compelled  to  spend  on  defence : 
I  imagined  it  expended  on  social  betterment  and 
human  help — on  a  magnificent  scheme  of  education, 
for  children  and  adults,  and  so  on.  Then  I  ob- 
served— two  years  ago — with  a  shudder  that  at 


36  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

any  moment  a  war  might  double  our  National 
Debt  and  compel  us  to  find  a  further  £40,000,000 
a  year  to  pay  for  our  militarism.  And  here,  within 
less  than  twelve  months,  we  have  incurred  this 
monstrous  burden,  yet  we  linger  still  on  the  very 
fringe  of  the  mighty  battlefield  we  have  to  traverse. 
Think  what  the  future  may  be  if  we  retain  mili- 
tarism. In  the  past  one  hundred  years,  or  a  little 
more,  war  has  cost  Europe  about  £4,000,000,000. 
In  one  year  a  modern  war  has  cost  Europe  more  than 
that  sum,  and  may  cost  it  double.  Add  to  this, 
if  you  can  calculate  it,  the  value  of  the  millions 
of  the  more  robust  workers  who  die  on  the  field  : 
the  appalling  loss  to  productive  industry :  the 
portentous  devastation  of  property.  I  suppose 
that,  soberly,  the  total  cost  of  this  war  will  be 
something  between  ten  and  twenty  thousand 
million  sterling.  What  will  be  the  cost  of  the  next 
war,  which  may  come  within  ten  years  ?  And  what 
might  we  have  done  in  Europe  with  ten  thousand 
million  sterling  ? 

I  am  not,  it  will  be  observed,  relying  on  disputed 
speculations  like  those  of  Mr.  Norman  Angell.  I 
do  not  accept  his  characteristic  theory ;  but  it 
need  not  now  be  discussed,  as  our  experience  rather 
suggests  that  a  modern  war  will  prove  so  exhausting, 
economically,  that  there  will  be  no  question  of 
substantial  indemnity  for  the  victor.  But  we 
must  in  any  case  add  to  this  cost  of  war,  for  victor 
and  vanquished  alike,  that  incalculable  damage 
which  is  expressed  in  ruined  homes,  ruined  fortunes, 


THE  MILITARY  SHAM  37 

and  the  pain  of  loss.  This  also  is  too  vividly  present 
in  our  minds  to  need  comment.  These  sacrifices 
have  been  borne  heroically.  Those  of  us  who  have 
lost  nothing  can  most  sincerely  salute  both  the  men 
who  exposed  their  lives  in  a  just  cause  and  the 
women  who  endured  as  women  do.  The  soldier's 
trade  is  an  honourable  trade  while  the  need  for  it 
lasts,  and  at  such  a  time  it  calls  for  respect  and 
gratitude.  But  how  stupid  and  brutal  in  the  last 
degree  is  the  system  that  imposes  these  sacrifices, 
when  we  reflect  that  the  honour  or  the  rights  of  any 
nation  could  have  been  vindicated  without  the 
darkening  of  a  single  home  or  the  loss  of  a  single 
citizen. 

There,  of  course,  we  have  the  centre  of  gravity  of 
the  whole  discussion.  //  we  can  abolish  and  dis- 
pense with  the  military  system,  our  retention  of  it 
in  the  twentieth  century  is  the  most  appalling 
sham  and  anachronism  of  which  we  are  guilty. 
I  do  not  enlarge  on  the  cost  of  war.  No  one  to-day 
can  be  insensible  of  it  or  suggest  that  any  but  the 
most  imperious  needs  would  justify  us  in  retaining 
it.  I  assume  also  that,  after  the  lamentable  be- 
haviour of  Germany,  none  will  question  that  there 
will  be  wars  as  long  as  militarism  lasts,  and  that 
the  cost  and  carnage  will  increase  prodigiously. 

The  supreme  point  for  us  to  realise  is  the  com- 
parative ease  with  which  this  greatest  of  reforms 
can  be  accomplished.  We  have  no  rival  schools 
of  economists  or  moralists  or  philosophers  darkening 
counsel  here.  We  do  not  await  a  genius  to  discover 


38  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

the  path  for  us.  A  plain  and  seriously  indisputable 
ideal  is  put  before  us :  arbitration.  A  court  for 
exercising  it  has  already  been  established  :  the 
Hague  Tribunal.  Let  the  majority  of  people  in  the 
more  powerful  nations  of  the  earth  agree  to  submit 
every  international  difference  to  that  or  some  other 
tribunal,  and  we  have  made  an  end  of  militarism 
and  war. 

If  this  seem  a  hasty  or  superficial  view  of  a  grave 
problem,  reflect  on  the  difficulties  which  a  cautious 
or  conservative  thinker  might  allege.  He  would, 
I  fancy,  on  sincere  consideration,  admit  that  the 
chief  and  most  serious  difficulty  is  not  a  reluctance 
based  on  specific  reasons,  but  a  general  apathy 
due  to  want  of  reflection.  I  am  not  for  a  moment 
underrating  the  magnitude  of  the  effort  that  will 
be  required  in  overcoming  this  apathy,  in  creating 
the  general  will.  In  this  respect,  indeed,  the 
pacifist  reform  is  peculiarly  hampered.  Pessi- 
mistic people  ask  how  we  came  to  boast  of  moral 
progress  in  modern  times  when  this  military  evil 
has  become  greater  than  ever.  They  do  not  reflect 
on  the  special  conditions  of  the  problem.  In 
attacking  almost  every  other  evil — industrial  in- 
justice, say,  or  cruel  sport,  or  a  stupid  penal  code — 
we  have  to  deal  only  with  our  own  nation.  We  can 
carry  the  reform  within  our  own  frontiers,  whatever 
other  nations  do.  In  the  case  of  militarism  we 
cannot.  All  the  Great  Powers,  at  least,  must  ad- 
vance simultaneously.  We  have  not  to  educate  a 
nation,  but  a  planet.  Pacifists  have  at  times  given 


THE  MILITARY  SHAM  39 

the  impression — generally  a  wrong  impression — 
that  they  forgot  this ;  that  they  advocated  dis- 
armament or  relaxation  of  armament  in  our  own 
nation,  whether  other  nations  disarmed  or  no.  In 
this  way,  and  because  many  pacifists  have  weakly 
opposed  or  carped  at  England's  action  in  this  very 
grave  crisis,  they  have  done  harm  by  making 
humanitarianism  seem  unpractical,  blindly  senti- 
mental, and  dangerous.  I  need  not  repeat  that  I 
have  not  the  least  sympathy  with  that  sort  of 
pacifism.  The  reform  must  be  international  and 
thoroughly  practical. 

But  this  large  task  of  planting  a  definite  convic- 
tion in  the  minds  of  the  majority  in  many  nations 
does  not  conflict  with  what  I  said  about  the  essential 
clearness  and  simplicity  of  the  reform.  If  you  set 
out  to  attack  poverty  or  to  reform  marriage,  you 
have  first  to  settle  very  serious  controversies  about 
the  way  to  do  it.  There  is  no  such  controversy 
here.  There  are,  it  is  true,  a  few  who  still  have 
in  their  veins  some  of  the  blood  of  the  medieval 
swashbuckler.  They  say  that,  while  a  quarrel 
about  territory  might  fitly  be  referred  to  a  judge, 
an  outrage  on  our  national  honour  must  be  expiated 
by  blood.  The  idea  is  purely  barbaric.  As  if  this 
river  of  human  blood  were  not  an  immeasurably 
greater  outrage  than  the  heated  words  of  a  nervous 
diplomatist,  or  the  jibes  of  a  silly  journalist,  or  the 
acts  of  an  excited  crowd,  or  the  guilt  of  a  couple  of 
assassins  \  As  if  an  international  court  could  not 
devise  some  means  of  appeasing  injured  honour 


40  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

as  well  as  of  restoring  injured  rights  !  It  is  dreadful 
materialism,  they  say,  to  put  honour  in  the  scale 
with  money.  So  men  said  in  the  clubs  of  London 
a  century  ago  in  defence  of  the  duel,  and  we  re- 
cognise in  their  pleas  the  lingering,  more  or  less 
disguised,  of  a  barbaric  sentiment.  Most  of  us 
recognise  that  same  feature  in  this  last  apology  for 
the  duel  of  nations.  If  we  can  trust  our  individual 
honour  to  a  mediocre  magistrate  or  judge,  or  a  still 
worse  jury,  we  can  certainly  entrust  our  national 
honour  to  a  group  of  the  ablest  and  most  impartial 
lawyers  of  the  world.  It  is  sheer  distrust  of  justice 
to  refuse  it. 

Here  again  history  is  wholly  on  the  side  of  reform. 
Which  of  the  great  wars  of  the  nineteenth  century 
involved  a  point  of  honour  that  could  not,  with 
entire  decency,  have  been  submitted  to  arbitration  ? 
Was  there  such  a  point  of  honour  in  the  Napo- 
leonic wars  ?  The  Prusso-Danish  ?  The  Prusso- 
Austrian  ?  The  Italian  ?  The  American  Civil 
War  ?  The  Franco-German  ?  The  Russo-Turkish  ? 
The  South  African  ?  What  point  was  involved  in 
any  of  them  that  could  not  have  been  settled  with 
far  greater  honour  to  the  combatants  and  greater 
regard  for  justice  by  an  impartial  tribunal  ?  In 
most  cases  they  were  really  wars  of  aggression  and 
expansion,  like  the  war  in  which  we  are  engaged. 
We  may  at  least  ask  the  men  who  hold  that  medieval 
idea  of  war  to  have — since  they  boast  much  of  their 
courage — the  elementary  courage  to  say  so. 

There  is  no  conceivable  quarrel  that  cannot  with 


THE  MILITARY  SHAM  41 

perfect  honour  be  submitted  to  arbitration.  And 
the  ostensible  ground  of  this  colossal  struggle  which 
is  now  exhausting  Europe — the  satisfaction  due  to 
Austria  for  the  assassination  of  the  Archduke — 
was  pre-eminently  a  matter  for  a  tribunal.  The 
frivolity  and  insincerity  with  which  these  grave 
issues  are  sometimes  met  are,  to  put  it  on  the  lowest 
level,  costly.  Speaking  in  a  London  club  some  time 
ago,  I  urged  this  substitution  of  arbitration  for  war. 
My  opponent  frivolously  observed  that  he  was  not 
sure  that  a  court  of  great  lawyers  would  be  cheaper 
than  war,  and  there  were  some  who  quite  seriously 
applauded.  Yet  Europe  had  then  actually  expended 
about  £2,000,000,000  in  the  preliminary  stages  of  its 
great  war  ! 

Wherever  there  is  a  considerable  and  deliberate 
reluctance  to  substitute  arbitration  for  war,  wherever 
these  unsatisfactory  pleas  for  war  are  put  forward, 
we  find  a  hypocritical  concealment  of  real  motives. 
If  we  would  be  practical  we  must  candidly  confront 
these  motives,  and  we  shall  find  that  the  most 
persistent  and  most  dangerous  of  them  is  still  the 
desire  to  gain  territory.  The  spectacle  of  the  decay 
of  the  Ottoman  Empire  and  the  apparent  helpless- 
ness of  the  Balkan  peoples  had  more  to  do  with  the 
militarism  of  European  Powers  than  they  were 
willing  to  admit.  That  source  of  temptation  is 
now  renewed,  and  most  of  the  Powers  have,  or  soon 
will  have,  all  the  territory  they  can  reasonably 
desire.  The  further  distribution  of  African  territory 
could  clearly  be  best  controlled  by  an  international 


42  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

court.  There  remains  one  Power  that  will  still 
feel  the  lust  of  territory.  Germany  conspicuously 
thwarted  in  Europe  the  advance  of  the  pacifist 
reform  because,  as  the  whole  world  now  sees,  it  had 
an  aggressive  territorial  ambition.  We  may  assume 
that  Austria  will  now  be  cured  of  its  lawless  and 
costly  designs,  and  that  Germany  will  remain  the 
one  unsated  and  discontented  nation.  But  Europe 
will  surely  have  the  elementary  wisdom  of  refusing 
to  maintain  its  terrible  burden  on  that  account. 
It  will  pay  us  better  to  meet  the  real  economic 
need  of  Germany  by  a  generous  colonial  deal,  and 
then  to  use  the  power  of  an  international  polity  to 
destroy  and  prevent  the  revival  of  militarism  in 
that  country. 

We  should  thus  remove  the  last  serious  obstacle 
to  the  reform,  and  the  work  might  advance  rapidly. 
The  tribunal,  as  I  said,  exists,  and  has  had  more 
experience  than  is  generally  realised.  The  Hague 
Conference  of  1907  established  a  Prize  Court,  with 
permanent  salaried  judges,  .and  an  Arbitration 
Court.  A  large  number  of  very  grave  quarrels 
have  since  been  adjusted  by  this  tribunal,  and, 
as  Professor  Schiicking  observes,  "  more  than  a 
hundred  contracts  between  States  have  been  con- 
cluded in  which,  on  each  occasion,  two  States 
made  the  Arbitration  Court  obligatory."  But, 
largely  owing  to  the  opposition  of  Germany  and  the 
general  apathy,  the  Court  remained  optional,  and 
the  Powers  maintained  their  armies  for  the  settle- 
ment of  quarrels  in  the  old  barbaric  manner.  The 


THE  MILITARY  SHAM  43 

next  and  last  step  is  for  all  the  Powers  to  recognise 
the  Court  as  compulsory,  and  to  furnish  it  with  an 
executive  (a  small  international  army  and  navy) 
for  the  enforcement  of  its  decisions.  Our  vast 
armies  and  navies  then  become  superfluous  and 
would  be  disbanded  simultaneously,  leaving  only 
a  small  force  in  each  country  for  the  suppression  of 
native  aggression  (with  the  consent  of  the  Hague 
Court)  and  for  use  by  the  Court  itself  to  enforce  its 
verdicts  or  suppress  illegal  attempts  to  arm. 

There  is  nothing  Utopian  or  academic  about  this 
reform.  A  body  of  high-minded  lawyers  and  states- 
men have  for  years  discussed  the  details  of  the 
scheme,  and  are  ready  to  launch  it  whenever  the 
various  Governments  are  compelled  by  public 
opinion  to  adopt  it.  The  immediate  task  is  to 
create  this  pressure  of  public  opinion.  We  may 
hope  that,  after  our  ghastly  lesson  in  the  price  of 
the  military  method,  we  shall  no  longer  be  rebuffed 
with  vapid  phrases  like  :  "  Do  not  force  the  pace." 
A  business-man  who  talked  nonsense  of  that  kind 
would  soon  find  his  level.  We  need  to  conduct 
our  national  and  international  life  on  business- 
principles,  to  get  rid  as  speedily  as  possible  of  a 
waste  and  disorder  which  are  an  outrage  on  the 
intelligence  of  the  race.  I  look  more  confidently 
to  business-men  than  to  speech-making  politicians 
and  sentimental  moralists  for  the  triumph  of  the 
reform.  Certain  industries  will,  of  course,  be 
gravely  dislocated,  even  annihilated,  by  the  change  ; 
and  vast  bodies  of  additional  workers  will,  in  most 


44  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

countries,  be  thrown  upon  a  crowded  labour-market. 
From  the  abstract  economical  point  of  view  it  is 
only  a  question  of  transfer.  Fifty  millions  which 
were  spent  on  military  industries  will  now  be  used 
in  enlarging  other  industries  or  creating  new.  In 
reality  there  will  be  grave  confusion  ;  but  that  is 
due  to  the  utterly  disorganised  nature  of  our  in- 
dustrial world,  which  I  discuss  later.  In  any  case 
to  allege  this  industrial  difficulty  as  a  serious  reason 
against  disarmament  is  a  very  singular  piece  of 
folly.  The  cost  and  trouble  of  adjusting  this 
temporary  dislocation  would  be  infinitely  less  than 
the  cost  and  trouble  of  a  war. 

We  need,  therefore,  to  persuade  the  public,  which 
has  borne  its  military  yoke  and  endured  the  occa- 
sional lash  of  war  with  the  placidity  of  a  draught-ox 
— that  is,  candidly,  how  we  shall  appear  in  the 
social  history  of  the  future — that  it  may  escape  the 
yoke  and  the  lash  when  it  wills.  Our  Churches 
might  make  some  atonement  for  a  long  and  lament- 
able neglect  of  their  duty  by  organising  a  really 
spirited  collective  campaign  in  this  greatest  of 
moral  interests.  The  central  educative  body  should, 
however,  be  quite  unsectarian.  I  take  it  that  an 
amalgamation  of  the  various  Peace  Societies, 
strengthened  by  the  adhesion  of  our  commercial 
and  industrial  leaders,  would  form  this  central 
educative  body.  The  present  war  would  furnish  it 
with  a  superb  text  and  an  unanswerable  argument. 
It  ought,  in  the  circumstances,  to  capture  each 
country  in  Europe  more  speedily  than  Cobden's 


THE  MILITARY  SHAM  45 

famous  league  captured  England.  The  press  would 
begin  to  assist  at  a  certain  stage  of  progress.  Even 
the  politicians  would  presently  lend  their  oratory  ; 
especially  as  their  prestige,  at  least  in  this  country, 
would  hardly  survive  a  second  strain  such  as  this 
war  has  put  on  it.  Every  agency  ought  to  be  enlisted 
in  impressing  upon  the  public  that,  whatever  other 
reforms  may  imply,  here  we  ask  no  sacrifice  ;  we 
indicate  a  way  in  which  the  community  may,  when 
it  wills,  rid  itself  of  a  stupendous  burden  and  set 
free  enormous  resources  for  social  improvement. 

Reformers  are  widely,  and  with  some  reason, 
accused  of  being  dreamy  and  unpractical.  Here, 
at  least,  it  will  be  seen  that  it  is  rather  the  public 
and  the  opponents  of  reform  who  are  dreamy, 
romantic,  and  unpractical :  that  the  reform  itself 
is  a  business  proposition  of  the  most  attractive 
and  promising  character.  But  let  us  be  even  more 
practical.  To  forecast  the  future  is  an  interesting 
intellectual  recreation ;  but  to  close  one's  mind 
entirely  against  the  possibilities  and  dangers  of  the 
future  is  positive  folly.  Let  us  glance  at  the  future. 

I  have  not  the  faintest  hope  that  the  Allied 
Powers  will,  as  they  ought  to  do,  disarm  Germany 
and  Austria  and  then  disarm  themselves,  when  the 
war  is  over.  Then  Germany  will  concentrate  all 
its  marvellous  power  of  organisation,  dissimulation, 
and  intrigue  in  a  dream  of  revanche.  The  appalling 
incompetence  displayed  by  what  we  may  call,  in 
the  broadest  sense,  our  Intelligence  Department 
and  our  War  Office  will  return,  when  the  temporary 


46  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

accession  of  business-ability  has  been  withdrawn 
from  it.  There  will  be  no  serious  inquiry  into  our 
scandalous  indolence  in  the  early  period  of  the  war, 
our  complete  failure  to  forecast  the  conditions  of 
war,  and  our  heavy  somnolence  during  Germany's 
feverish  preparations,  although  the  documents 
published  by  the  French  Government  show  that, 
by  1913  at  least,  sharp-sighted  foreign  representa- 
tives saw  clearly  that  war  was,  to  put  it  moderately, 
highly  probable.  In  point  of  fact,  our  authorities 
knew  that  war  was  gravely  imminent.  I  happen 
to  know,  from  a  little  breach  of  confidence,  that  our 
War  Office  secretly  warned  certain  reservists  in 
June  1914  (even  before  the  Serajevo  murder)  to 
be  ready.  The  men  were  ready,  and  have  borne 
their  share  superbly ;  but  our  authorities  had  to 
confess  that,  even  after  nine  months'  experience  of 
the  war,  they  were  immeasurably  behind  Germany 
in  the  production  of  the  two  vital  necessaries  of 
a  modern  war  —  machine-guns  and  high-explosive 
shells. 

Our  experts  will  return  to  this  comfortable 
somnolence.  There  will  be  no  serious  inquiry. 
Politicians  and  their  advisers  will  escape  in  a  cloud 
of  thrilling  emotions  and  enthusiastic  rhetoric. 
Persistent  questioners,  who  are  rudely  impatient 
of  party-discipline,  will  be  snubbed  and  evaded. 
Any  other  questioners,  not  of  the  political  world, 
will  be  ignored.  We  shall  return  to  British  dignity 
and  placidity.  Germany  will  work  and  intrigue 
as  it  never  worked  and  intrigued  before.  There 


THE  MILITARY  SHAM  47 

will  be  grave  domestic  trouble  in  Russia  and,  as 
in  the  case  of  Turkey,  German  representatives  will 
think  while  British  representatives  play.  The  pre- 
parations may  occupy  ten  years  or  twenty  years, 
but  they  will  proceed.  The  aim  will  be  a  war  with 
Russia  neutral  or  friendly  to  Germany.  If  it 
occurs  .  .  .  One  has  only  to  imagine  where  we 
should  be  to-day  if  Germany  had  not  made  the 
error  of  abandoning  the  Bismarckian  tradition. 

Behind  this  is  a  further  possibility.  China  is 
just  as  capable  as  Japan  of  learning  the  use  of 
thirteen-inch  guns  and  maxims.  Sir  Hiram  Maxim, 
in  fact,  who  knows  both  China  and  the  gun,  quite 
agrees  with  me  on  that.  And  China  has,  behind 
that  stoical  and  almost  child-like  expression  it 
presents  to  Europe,  an  acute  memory  that  for 
thirty  years  we  have  treated  it  with  flagrant  in- 
justice. It  may  take  decades  to  undo  the  evil  of 
ages  of  Manchu  misgovernment  and  organise  the 
resources  of  the  country,  but  the  day  will  come 
when  an  alert  and  powerful  nation  of  500,000,000 
Orientals  will  press  against  its  frontiers.  We  may 
remember  that  the  Mongol  banners  have  before 
now  fluttered  over  Moscow  and  reached  the 
Mediterranean.  And  the  Mongols  are  not  the 
only  awakening  people.  We  may  yet  see  an  anti- 
European  combination  from  the  Asiatic  shore  of 
the  Pacific  to  the  African  shore  of  the  Atlantic. 
These  are  some  of  the  possibilities  we  hand  on  to 
our  children  if  we  do  not  in  time  abandon  the 
military  system. 


48  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

To  that  pass  has  it  brought  us.  We  writhe  and 
groan  under  the  terrible  burden  it  lays  on  us,  and 
we  shrink  from  contemplating  the  future  ;  yet  we 
might  cast  off  the  burden  and  rid  the  future  of 
peril  when  we  will.  We  disavow  the  buccaneering 
spirit,  and  protest  that  we  arm  only  in  defence 
against  each  other ;  and  one  wonders  whether  to 
smile  or  weep  at  the  obtuseness  which  prevents 
us  from  adopting  a  simple  and  humane  means  of 
defence  instead  of  this  exhausting  barbarism.  We 
"  humanise  "  war,  yet  cling  needlessly  to  the  whole 
inhuman  business.  We  are  teaching  the  backward 
nations  to  arm, — we  would  gladly  supply  them 
with  tutors  and  arms  at  any  time,— and  may  be 
thus  preparing  a  more  colossal  conflict  than  ever. 
Surely  the  man  or  woman  of  the  twenty-first  century 
will  find  us  an  enigma  ! 

Let  me  close  with  a  repetition  of  my  protest 
against  the  misconstruction  to  which  such  a  book 
as  this  is  always  exposed.  I  advocate  no  Utopian 
scheme,  but  one  which  some  of  the  ablest  lawyers, 
statesmen,  and  business-men  in  Europe  have  dis- 
cussed for  years  and  warmly  endorsed.  I  have  no 
wish  to  conceal  technical  difficulties  under  senti- 
mental phrases,  but  these  men,  to  whom  I  refer, 
are  prepared  to  meet  the  difficulties.  I  regard  the 
work  of  the  soldier  as  honourable  and  worthy,  as 
long  as  we  impose  the  military  system  on  each 
other ;  and  at  this  particular  juncture  regret  only 
that  I  am  long  past  the  age  of  bearing  arms.  I 
plead,  as  long  as  the  system  lasts,  for  unquestionable 


THE  MILITARY  SHAM  49 

efficiency  in  national  defence,  whatever  it  cost. 
But  I  say  that,  in  this  military  system,  we  are  en- 
throning the  hollowest  and  most  ghastly  sham 
that  ever  deluded  humanity  :  that,  when  we  have 
the  courage  or  wisdom  to  strip  it  of  its  tinselled 
robes,  we  will  shudder  at  sight  of  the  gaunt  frame 
of  death  which  has  ruled  civilisation  for  so  many 
thousand  years  :  that  nothing  is  wanting  but  the 
general  will  to  dethrone  this  mockery  of  a  god  : 
and  that,  when  we  have  abolished  militarism  and 
war,  we  shall  advance  along  the  way  of  social 
improvement  with  far  lighter  steps  and  vastly 
increased  resources. 


CHAPTER    III 

THE   FOLLIES   OF   SHAM   PATRIOTISM 

WHEN  warfare  is  abolished,  and  men  no  longer 
peep  at  their  foreign  neighbours  over  hedges  of 
bayonets,  there  will  be  a  number  of  less  important 
international  absurdities  to  remove.  Some  three 
hundred  years  ago,  we  discovered  that  the  earth 
was  a  globe.  To-day  we  are  appreciating  that  this 
globe  is  the  property  of  the  human  race,  and  that 
the  friendly  co-operation  of  all  branches  of  the 
race  is  extremely  desirable.  National  efforts  and 
sacrifices  are  undone  by  international  waste  and 
disorder.  We  begin  to  perceive  this,  and  the  most 
sober  of  us  must  look  forward  to  a  time  when  the 
scattered  and  antagonistic  elements  of  the  race  will 
agree  upon  some  graceful  design  of  a  City  of  Man, 
and  unite  in  constructing  it. 

That  familiar  phrase,  the  Brotherhood  of  Men, 
sounds  rather  hollow  in  the  ears  of  many.  I  am 
avoiding  pretty  phrases  and  disputable  creeds  and 
subtle  philosophies — I  am  trying  to  keep  in  direct 
contact  with  the  realities  of  life — and  therefore  I 
do  not  use  it.  But  the  sincere  sentiment  behind 
it,  the  feeling  that  we  men  and  women  do  form  one 


THE  FOLLIES  OF  SHAM  PATRIOTISM    51 

large  family  in  possession  of  an  immense  and 
infinitely  fertile  estate,  and  that  we  will  develop 
our  property  more  advantageously  for  each  of  us 
if  we  act  as  though  we  were  brothers,  can  hardly 
be  challenged.  The  question  of  the  exact  expression 
of  our  relationship  to  each  other  may  be  left  to 
poets  and  scientists. 

Those  lighter  shams  of  patriotism,  which  I  shall 
describe  in  this  chapter  as  hampering  the  march 
of  the  race,  will  be  recognised  even  by  men  who, 
with  Carlyle  or  Nietzsche,  refuse  the  title  of  brother 
to  some  of  their  fellows.  We  ourselves  smile  at 
them  sometimes,  and  at  the  cheerfulness  with  which 
we  endure  the  grave  inconvenience  they  put  on  us  ; 
and  they  will  certainly  provoke  the  laughter  of  the 
scholars  who  will  some  day  learnedly  discuss  the 
question  whether  we  men  and  women  of  the  twentieth 
century  were  or  were  not  civilised.  They  have,  it  is 
true,  a  much  more  serious  aspect ;  they  are  im- 
portant auxiliaries  of  the  war-god.  On  the  whole, 
however,  they  are  shams  that  we  ought  to  kill  with 
ridicule  and  bury  with  genial  disdain.  They  are 
practices  or  institutions  which  we  have  plainly 
inherited  from  the  barbaric  past,  when  men  were 
slaves  of  tradition,  kingly  or  priestly,  and  dare 
hardly  use  their  own  intelligence  on  their  own 
habits.  In  this  age  of  ours,  when  we  are  at  last 
becoming  the  masters,  instead  of  the  slaves,  of  our 
traditions,  they  are  regarded  by  large  bodies  of  men 
and  women  in  every  civilised  country  as  stupid, 
anachronistic,  and  mischievous. 


52  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

In  fact,  there  is  here  again  no  serious  difference 
of  opinion.  One  has  not  to  force  one's  way  through 
some  controversial  thicket  before  one  can  discover 
the  correct  path  of  reform.  The  way  lies  perfectly 
clear  before  us,  and  we  can  enter  it  at  any  time  when 
we  have  the  collective  will  to  do  so.  One  might 
again  describe  the  proposal,  not  as  a  "  reform  " — 
since  many  people  instinctively  shrink  from  the 
word  reform — but  as  a  business-proposition  of  the 
simplest  and  most  profitable  character.  I  speak  of 
those  false  and  antiquated  freaks  of  patriotism 
which  keep  different  groups  of  human  beings  speak- 
ing different  languages,  using  different  weights  and 
measures,  wrestling  with  each  other's  mysterious 
coinage,  collecting  each  other's  stamps,  and  stumbling 
against  the  many  other  irritating  diversities  which 
make  one  part  of  the  earth  "  foreign  "  to  another,. 
It  may  seem  to  imply  some  lack  of  sense  of  propor- 
tion to  pass  from  so  grave  a  subject  as  war  to  these 
matters,  but  a  very  little  reflection  will  show  how 
closely  they  are  connected. 

The  first  and  most  ludicrous  of  them  is  the 
stubbornness  with  which  each  fragment  of  the  race 
prides  itself  on  having  a  language  of  its  own.  This 
confusion  of  tongues  has  irritated  and  inconvenienced 
and  helped  to  exasperate  against  each  other  the 
various  sections  of  the  human  community  for 
thousands  of  years,  although  we  could  suppress  it 
at  will  in  half  a  generation.  Millions  of  us  have 
an  acute  and  constant  experience  of  the  absurdity 
of  the  system.  In  our  schools,  where  mind  and 


THE  FOLLIES  OF  SHAM  PATRIOTISM    53 

body  require  the  fullest  possible  attention  during 
the  few  years  of  training,  we  devote  a  large  pro- 
portion of  the  time  to  teaching  children  how  the 
same  idea  may  be  expressed  by  half  a  dozen  different 
sounds.  The  higher  the  class  of  school,  the  more 
valuable  and  skilled  the  teacher,  the  more  time 
must  be  wasted  in  learning  how  ancient  Greeks 
and  Romans,  or  how  Germans  and  French  and 
Italians,  have  invented  different  sounds  from  ours 
for  expressing  the  same  ideas.  The  slenderness  of 
the  protest  one  hears  against  this  polyglot  system 
from  educators  themselves  is  amazing.  They  have, 
it  is  true,  begun  to  rebel  in  large  numbers  against 
the  teaching  of  dead  languages,  but  comparatively 
few  of  them  support  the  increasing  demand  for  that 
adoption  of  a  common  tongue  which  would  do  so 
much  for  the  advance  of  education. 

Those  whose  parents  did  not  happen  to  be  wealthy 
enough  in  their  youth  to  send  them  to  schools 
which  have  the  distinction  of  teaching  "  languages  " 
are  hampered  in  a  hundred  ways.  If  they  travel, 
they  must  pay  sycophantic  waiters  and  couriers  to 
give  them  a  dim  understanding  of  the  human  world 
through  which  they  pass.  Even  in  their  own  country 
they  cannot  order  a  dinner  at  any  well-ordered 
restaurant  without  first  studying  a  lengthy  voca- 
bulary of  superfluous  sounds,  or  without  practising 
a  dozen  little  hypocrisies  to  conceal  their  ignorance. 
In  large  colonial  hotels,  where  hardly  a  single  person 
who  does  not  speak  English  is  ever  found,  one 
receives  a  "  menu  "  with  the  usual  intimidating 


54  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

array  of  French  phrases.  "  You  ought  to  supply 
dictionaries  with  this  sort  of  thing  !  "  said  an  angry 
young  squatter,  taking  a  seat  beside  me  in  the 
Grand  Hotel  at  Melbourne,  to  the  waiter.  If  you 
are  travelling  for  business,  or  even  transacting 
business  at  home,  you  must  have  your  foreign 
correspondents  and  agents  ;  and  with  their  aid  you 
follow  dimly  the  very  interesting  advances  and 
experiments  that  are  being  made  in  your  depart- 
ment abroad.  Our  Governments  must  pay  more 
heavily  for  diplomatic  and  consular  service.  Our 
books  and  magazines  make  a  parade  of  foreign 
phrases  which  have  not  yet  become  as  familiar  as 
English.  Our  shopkeepers  add  twenty-five  per  cent, 
to  the  cost  of  our  linen  by  calling  it  "  lingerie."  .  .  . 
We  are  tormented  in  a  hundred  ways,  yet  we 
contemplate  this  absurd  muddle  and  waste  with 
as  resigned  an  air  as  if  we  still  believed  that  the 
Almighty  had,  in  a  fit  of  temper,  created  the  con- 
fusion of  tongues  at  ancient  Babel.  So  subtle 
and  strong  is  the  hold  of  custom  on  us  that  we 
rarely  even  ask  ourselves  whether  this  is  a  wise 
or  an  unalterable  arrangement.  We  hear  with  in- 
difference, if  not  with  amusement,  of  societies  which 
propose  to  adopt  one  international  tongue  in  the 
place  of  this  ridiculous  confusion  ;  we  languidly 
picture  to  ourselves  little  groups  of  long-haired 
faddists  meeting  in  bleak  halls  to  attract  our  duller 
neighbours  to  the  cultivation  of  one  more  innocent 
enthusiasm.  We  have  not  time  for  these  things. 
When  a  sensible  man  has  given  adequate  time 


THE  FOLLIES  OF  SHAM  PATRIOTISM    55 

to  business  and  pleasure,  he  has,  he  says,  no  hours 
to  spare  for  these  idealistic  luxuries.  Yet  a  moment's 
serious  reflection  would  show  us  that  the  sole  aim  of 
these  "  faddists  "  is  to  make  life  less  crowded  and 
laborious,  to  lighten  our  business  and  add  to  our 
pleasure,  to  introduce  common-sense  into  a  large 
part  of  our  conduct.  To  such  strange  contra- 
dictions and  absurdities  does  this  resolve  to  resist 
innovation  bring  us. 

Most  people  are,  perhaps, — if  they  ever  give  a 
thought  to  the  matter, — under  the  impression  that 
it  is  a  mountainous  and  impracticable  task  to 
introduce  such  a  reform  into  the  life  of  the  world. 
It  is,  on  the  contrary,  one  of  the  simplest  and  most 
practicable  reforms  to  which  men  could  set  their 
hands.  It  is  even  less  controversial  a  measure  than 
the  abolition  of  war.  There  are  few  prejudices  of 
our  time  which  have  not  attracted  the  ingenuity 
of  some  faddist  or  other ;  but  this  is  one  of  the 
few.  More  emphatically  here  than  in  the  case  of 
war,  all  that  we  need  is  the  will  of  the  majority 
to  change  our  anachronistic  practice.  When  one 
regards  the  entirely  uncontroversial  nature  of  the 
reform  and  the  immense  economy  it  will  entail,  it 
is  hardly  unreasonable  to  hope  that  this  will  of  the 
majority  may  soon  be  secured. 

I  assume  that,  when  we  agree  to  direct  our 
"  Governments  "  to*  carry  out  this  elementary  im- 
provement of  international  life,  they  will  summon  an 
international  commission  of  philologists,  educators, 
and  commercial  men,  whose  business  it  will  be  to 


56  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

create  a  new  language.     This  step  will  not  be  taken 
until    the   voluntary   movement    for   reform   has 
reached  such  proportions  as  to  arouse  the  interest 
of  politicians;  but  in  the  end  we  rely  on  govern- 
mental action,  as  it  is  necessary  to  reform  schools 
and    Parliaments.     This   international   commission 
will,  no  doubt,  examine  impartially  such  languages 
as  Esperanto.     Possibly  these  existing  international 
tongues  will  be  found  more  complex  than  an  ideal 
language  ought  to  be,  and  less  attentive  to  the  finer 
values    of    speech.     For    the    simple    purpose    of 
expression  it  is  possible  to  create  a  tongue  far  less 
complex  than  any  in  use  in  the  civilised  world  to- 
day :    a  tongue  that  could  be  learned  in  a  few 
months   even   by    the    untrained    intelligence.     It 
would  proceed  on  the  entirely  opposite  principle 
to  that  of  modern  word-makers  :   the  principle,  for 
instance,    that    changes  "  fireworks  "  into  "  pyro- 
technics "  (a  piece  of  bad  Greek  for  good  English), 
or  "gardening"  into  "horticulture."     The  use  of 
this  debased   Latin   and  Greek  in  science  has  a 
certain  advantage  under  our  present  polyglot  system, 
as  it  is  an  approach  toward  international  agreement, 
but  it  is  making  more  onerous  than  ever  the  burden 
of  our  languages.     We  want  a  simple  means  of 
expression  and  intercourse,  with  a  power  of  expand- 
ing to  meet  the  advance  of  thought  and  discovery 
without    needing     to    run    to    such     lengths    as 
"  diaminotrihydroxydodecanoic    acid."    No    exist- 
ing national  speech  would  meet  the  purpose,  least 
of  all  English  ;   but  it  would  be  advisable  to  have 


THE  FOLLIES  OF  SHAM  PATRIOTISM    57 

some  regard  to  aesthetic  interests  in  framing  a  new 
language,  and  the  old  tongues  would  supply  a  good 
deal  of  material  in  this  regard.  The  success  of 
the  poet  depends  on  qualities  of  words  as  well  as 
qualities  of  imagination,  and  we  have  no  wish,  like 
Plato,  to  exclude  poets  from  the  ideal  common- 
wealth. We  should  retain  large  numbers  of  these 
short  expressive  words. 

Great  numbers  of  people  hesitate  in  face  of  this 
proposal  because  they  feel  that  it  is  a  very  large 
innovation,  however  simple  and  indisputable  it  is 
in  principle.  They  contemplate  such  things  as 
a  nervous  child  gazes  on  the  sea  from  the  steps 
of  a  bathing  machine.  Intellectually,  a  few  such 
plunges  would  be  of  incalculable  service  to  our 
generation.  One  can  understand  people  hesitating 
before  some  disputed  economic  or  political  scheme, 
but  to  shrink  from  adopting  plain  and  large  reforms 
such  as  this  is  not  a  sign  of  health.  We  need  to 
purge  our  sluggish  imaginations  of  their  prejudices, 
to  brace  our  intellectual  power,  to  take  pride  in 
our  creativeness. 

When  the  new  international  tongue  is  ready,  a 
few  years  will  suffice  to  make  it  prevail  over  the 
older  languages  in  the  leading  countries  which 
helped  to  set  up  the  commission.  It  will  become 
the  one  speech  of  the  school,  the  press,  commerce, 
law,  government,  and,  possibly,  the  church.  The 
travelling  public  will,  as  every  Esperantist  knows, 
at  once  discover  the  advantage.  The  commercial 
world  will  find  it  a  splendid  economy  and  a  priceless 


58  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

boon  to  international  trade.  A  man  will  be  able 
to  travel  from  London  to  Tokyo  with  as  little 
difficulty  as  from  Woolwich  to  Ealing  ;  and  it  will 
be  found  that  when  the  foreign  tongue,  which  so 
instinctively  suggests  to  us  the  uniform  of  an  enemy, 
has  disappeared,  one  of  the  worst  obstacles  to 
mutual  good-feeling  will  be  removed.  When  the 
Englishman  can  talk  to  the  Berliner  with  perfect 
ease, — I  assume  that  all  beginnings  of  dialect  would 
be  suppressed  as  mercilessly  as  weeds  in  a  well- 
kept  garden, — just  as  a  citizen  of  London  now  talks 
with  a  citizen  of  New  York  or  Sydney,  a  very 
dangerous  chasm  will  be  bridged.  It  is  quite 
certain  that  the  calamitous  attitude  of  modern 
Germany  could  not  have  proceeded  to  such  a 
dangerous  pitch  if  the  Imperialist  and  other  litera- 
ture which  is  responsible  for  it  had  been  intelligible 
to  the  whole  of  Europe.  A  few  students  of  par- 
ticular aspects  of  German  life  were  more  or  less 
acquainted  with  it,  and  we  refused  to  believe  them. 
Now  we  discover,  to  our  amazement,  that  a  neigh- 
bouring nation  has  for  decades  been  openly  educated 
up  to  a  pitch  of  unscrupulous  aggression,  and  the 
world  has  been  threatened  with  an  incalculable 
catastrophe.  I  am  not  overlooking  the  real  reasons 
for  this  development,  but  I  say  confidently  that  it 
would  have  been  impossible  if  a  national  literature 
were  not  generally  confined  within  the  nation  which 
produces  it. 

In    the    school    the  advantage  would    be  very 
considerable.     Our  overstrained   and    bespectacled 


THE  FOLLIES  OF  SHAM  PATRIOTISM    59 

children  would  be  spared  several  hours  a  day 
of  their  school-work  or  home-work.  The  whole 
ancient  and  modern-language  section  of  the  curri- 
culum would  be  suppressed,  and  this  suppression, 
with  other  reforms  which  I  will  describe  later,  would 
enlarge  the  teacher's  opportunity  of  giving  real 
education  and  spare  the  pupil  a  great  deal  of  de- 
vastating brain-fag.  For  the  education  of  older 
people  the  gain  would  be  almost  as  great.  A 
Birmingham  artisan  could  read  the  latest  novel 
of  d'Annunzio  or  latest  play  of  Hauptmann  without 
the  assistance  of  expert  or  inexpert  translators. 
All  the  older  literature  that  is  worth  preserving 
would  be  translated  by  specially  qualified  inter- 
preters into  the  new  tongue,  and  the  originals  would 
then  become  the  toys  of  leisured  pedants.  If,  as 
I  suggested,  a  proper  attention  to  word-values  were 
secured  in  the  making  of  the  new  tongue,  there  is 
no  reason  why  it  should  not  express  poetical  senti- 
ments as  gracefully  and  pleasantly  as  any  existing 
tongue. 

Is  there  any  Utopian  element  in  this  scheme  ? 
Most  people  will  probably  recognise  that  the  only 
bit  of  utopianism  in  it  is  the  expectation  that  the 
majority  of  any  nation  can  be  induced  to  adopt  it. 
That  might  seem  to  justify  one  in  using  impatient 
language  about  the  wisdom  of  the  majority  of  us, 
but  it  is  no  reflection  on  the  scheme  itself.  The 
reformer,  however,  is  ill-advised  in  reflecting  on  the 
intelligence  of  his  fellows.  Carlyle's  "  twenty- 
seven  millions,  mostly  fools,"  discovered  in  the  end 


60  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

that  all  their  follies,  which  he  so  vigorously  de- 
nounced in  his  Latter-Day  Pamphlets,  were  more 
permanent  and  accurate  than  his  "  eternal  verities." 
It  is  usually  want  of  leisure  or  immediate  profit 
which  alienates  the  public  from  schemes  of  reform. 
Possibly  a  scheme  which  so  plainly  promises  more 
leisure  to  us  and  a  very  considerable  profit  may  hope 
to  win  attention.  The  reform  of  spelling  I,  of  course, 
take  as  an  integral  part  of  the  scheme. 

But  this  reform  of  international  intercourse 
must  take  a  more  comprehensive  shape  than  the 
mere  suppression  of  this  confusing  plurality  of 
tongues.  It  is  just  as  foolish  of  us  to  maintain 
a  plurality  of  weights  and  measures,  of  coinage  and 
postage-stamps,  of  social  and  civic  and  juridical 
forms.  Even  if  we  confine  our  attention  to  the 
leading  civilised  nations,  we  find  in  these  respects  a 
confusion  which  outrages  the  elementary  instincts 
of  commercial  life  and  lays  a  monstrous  burden  of 
superfluous  trouble  on  us  all.  Travellers  and 
business-men  endure  it  year  after  year  with  the  most 
amazing  patience.  Men  who  would  be  fired  to 
instant  action  if  they  found  a  trace  of  such  disorder 
in  their  domestic  or  commercial  concerns  resign 
themselves  to  this  colossal  muddle  of  international 
intercourse  as  calmly  as  if  it  were  a  providential 
and  entirely  sacred  arrangement.  I  remember  once 
passing  rather  rapidly  from  Lucerne  to  London, 
by  way  of  Wiesbaden,  Cologne,  and  Brussels  :  on 
another  occasion  by  way  of  Cologne  and  Amster- 
dam. The  hours  one  has  to  spend  in  calculating 


THE  FOLLIES  OF  SHAM  PATRIOTISM    61 

coinage  (or  lose  the  exchange-value),  the  worry 
expended  in  struggling  for  stamps  or  dinners  in  the 
less  familiar  tongues,  the  confusion  of  train-rules  and 
street-usages  and  civic  regulations,  reflect  a  system 
of  chaotic  disorder  ;  to  say  nothing  of  the  "  sizes  " 
of  boots  or  collars  you  need,  the  weight  of  tobacco 
or  fruit,  and  so  on. 

All  this  is  a  portentous  example  of  slavery  to 
tradition,  whether  the  tradition  be  reasonable  or 
no.  We  have  not  the  slightest  regard  for  the  histori- 
cal development  of  this  muddle  and  the  peculiar 
folly  of  retaining  it  in  our  generation.  Our  earlier 
ancestors  measured  their  woollens  or  their  corn  or 
their  mead  by  the  simple  standards  that  are  apt 
to  occur  to  primitive  peoples.  Even,  however, 
where  the  same  standard  occurred  to,  or  commended 
itself  to,  different  and  remote  communities,  its 
vagueness  was  fatal.  "  A  thousand  paces "  (a 
mille,  as  the  Romans  said)  seemed  a  fair  reckoning 
for  long  distances,  but  the  stretch  varied,  and  we 
have  Irish  miles  and  German  miles  and  English 
miles  and  nautical  miles.  Our  ounces  and  yards 
and  pints  are  as  intelligent  as  most  of  the  other 
things  which  the  ancient  Briton  invented,  but,  being 
British,  they  seem  sacred  to  us.  A  hundred  years 
ago  a  far  superior  standard,  the  decimal  system, 
was  put  before  us,  but  our  fathers  felt  that  it  smacked 
of  the  French  Revolution  and  Napoleon  and  atheism. 
We  smile  at  their  prejudice,  yet  we  have  no  greater 
disposition  to  alter  our  unintelligent  ways.  The 
German  would  be  horrified  at  having  to  reckon 


62  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

his  distances  in  kilometres.  The  British  lion,  the 
French  or  German  or  Russian  or  American  eagle, — 
there  is  a  marvellous  love  of  that  symbol  of  aspira- 
tion and  progress, — or  the  rising  sun  of  Japan,  must 
have  its  own  system  of  weights  and  measures  and 
coins.  Passing  through  a  strip  of  Canada  some 
months  ago  I  had,  from  lack  of  the  local  stamps,  to 
entrust  my  post  to  a  kindly  waitress ;  and  was, 
of  course,  robbed.  Of  late  years,  Australia  has 
patriotically  resolved  to  have  its  own  coins,  and 
has  fought  parliamentary  battles  over  its  stamps. 
The  often-imagined  visitor  from  another  planet 
would  not  be  so  much  surprised  at  this  extra- 
ordinary and  costly  muddle  of  patriotic  shams  as 
at  our  faculty  for  progress  in  commerce  and  in- 
dustry amidst  it  all.  We  seem  to  be  quite  blind 
to  the  larger  applications  of  our  modern  doctrine 
of  efficiency.  Regarded  as  an  economic  system, 
which  it  really  is,  the  international  arrangement  of 
our  civilised  world  is  full  of  crudities  which  are  more 
worthy  of  a  Papuan  pedlar.  The  contrast  between 
the  methods  of  a  large  Chicago  store  or  a  British 
or  German  engineering-business  and  the  methods  we 
retain  in  far  larger  and  more  important  concerns 
will  one  day  be  a  subject  of  amazement.  The  evil 
of  which  I  am  speaking  eats  into  the  very  heart  of 
an  industrial  and  commercial  system  which  prides 
itself  on  its  order,  economy,  and  efficiency.  Yet 
this  comprehensive  muddle  is  contemplated  almost 
without  protest  by  business-men.  If  it  were  merely 
the  leisure  hours  of  travellers  which  were  dissi- 


THE  FOLLIES  OF  SHAM  PATRIOTISM    63 

pated  in  this  abstruse  study  of  foreign  tongues  and 
coins  and  customs,  we  might  merely  deplore  pro- 
verbial vagaries  of  taste.  But  the  abuse  is 
immeasurably  greater  than  this ;  the  advantage 
we  should  gain  by  this  scheme  of  unification  can 
scarcely  be  calculated.  One  would  think  that  the 
reform  was  really  difficult  to  achieve,  or  lay  under 
the  frown  of  some  imposing  school  of  theologians 
or  moralists  or  economists  ! 

I  omit  from  the  list  of  perversities  whatever 
is  the  subject  of  serious  economic  controversy. 
Such  things  as  national  tariffs,  for  instance.  How- 
ever arguable  the  question  may  be  in  England, 
even  the  free-trader  usually  appreciates  in  such  a 
country  as  Australia  the  plea  for  a  protective 
tariff.  There  is,  at  all  events,  a  very  serious  con- 
troversy on  the  general  issue,  and  it  would  not  be 
expedient  to  include  among  plain  reforms  any 
scheme  of  universal  free-trade  or  universal  protec- 
tion. It  is  enough  to  point  out  that  certain 
obvious,  stupid,  and  mischievous  survivals  of  old 
conditions  gravely  hamper  our  international  inter- 
course. The  prestige  of  our  civilisation,  as  well 
as  a  common-sense  view  of  our  interest,  demand 
that  we  shall  suppress  them.  More  disputable 
reforms  may  be  considered  afterwards.  Our  usual 
method  is,  one  fears,  to  discuss  the  more  disputable 
reforms  first. 

It  is  difficult  to  conceive  any  plea  being  put 
forward  on  behalf  of  these  irrational  old  customs, 
but  a  sufficiently  ingenious  and  superficial  apologist 


64  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

might  claim  that  patriotism  bids  us  maintain  them. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  the  work  of  reform  will  have 
to  proceed  over  the  bodies  of  a  number  of  the 
pettier  patriots.  No  one  can  suppose  that  the  task 
of  unification  will  be  accomplished  without  friction. 
German  professors  and  Bulgarian  politicians  will 
protest  against  this  pernicious  cosmopolitan  spirit, 
this  horrible  wish  to  denationalise  us,  this 
tampering  with  the  sources  of  national  energy. 
Ardent  Irishmen  and  Welshmen  will  form  very 
talkative  associations  for  the  defence  of  "  the  grand 
old  tongue."  Rival  languages  will  be  put  forward, 
and  Esperanto  will  strain  its  hitherto  respectable 
resources  in  denouncing  Volapiik  or  the  new  official 
speech.  French  and  English  and  German  savants 
will  heatedly  press  the  claims  of  ideal  words  in  their 
respective  languages  to  be  taken  over,  and  pamphle- 
teers will  discuss  whether  Herr  Professor  Doktor 
Schmidt  did  or  did  not  contribute  more  suggestions 
than  Professor  Smith.  A  higher  criticism  of  the 
new  language  will  spread  its  pale  growth  like  a 
parasitic  fungus. 

What  is  patriotism  ?  In  the  sense  in  which  the 
word  is  still  widely,  if  not  generally,  understood, 
it  stands  for  a  sentiment  that  belongs  essentially 
to  a  pre-rational  age  and  cannot  survive  unchanged 
in  a  rational  age.  This  does  not  mean  that  a 
rational  age  has  no  place  for  sentiments  ;  it  means 
that  the  sentiments  must  not  affront  reason.  We 
cannot  at  once  pride  ourselves  on  being  paragons 
of  common-sense,  yet  slaves  to  a  sentiment  which 


THE  FOLLIES  OF  SHAM  PATRIOTISM    65 

common  -  sense  must  not  examine  too  closely. 
Loyalty  to  that  larger  national  family  to  which  we 
belong  :  cordial  and  generous  support  of  its  in- 
terests :  sacrifice,  if  need  be,  for  its  just  ambitions  : 
pride  in  its  worthy  achievements,  even  in  its  worthier 
superiorities  —  these  are  useful  and  intelligible 
sentiments,  and  it  is  not  unreasonable  to  make  a 
flag  the  visible  symbol  of  these  just  interests  and 
achievements.  But  a  blind  and  undiscriminating 
devotion  to  flag  or  king,  a  glorification  of  our  national 
family  above  others  in  the  roystering  fashion  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  a  refusal  to  ask  if  the  demands  of  our 
rulers  are  just  or  if  the  interests  we  are  pressed  to 
support  are  sound  and  equitable,  an  obstinate 
pride  in  a  thing  because  it  is  British  or  German, 
whether  it  be  wise  or  no — these  are  sentiments 
entirely  at  variance  with  the  best  spirit  of  our  age. 
We  may  recognise  that  even  the  crude  old  patriotism 
has  contributed  much  to  the  advance  of  civilisation. 
This  gathering  of  men  into  rival  national  groups 
has  forced  the  pace,  and  has  at  times  developed 
noble  qualities.  But  we  must  admit  also  that  the 
same  patriotism  has  inspired  hundreds  of  unjust 
and  stupid  wars,  and  has  maintained  on  their  thrones 
kings  and  queens  who  ought  to  have  been  dismissed 
with  ignominy. 

The  progress  of  civilisation  does  not  entail  the 
suppression,  but  the  refinement,  of  sentiment,  as 
is  very  plainly  seen  in  the  supposed  implications 
of  patriotism.  When  it  is  urged  that  these  absurd 
national  diversities  of  speech  and  coinage  must  be 
6 


66  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

sustained  on  the  ground  of  patriotism,  we  ask  at 
once  which  sound  element  of  patriotism  could 
demand  such  an  anachronism  ?  It  is,  surely,  only 
the  spurious  medieval  sentiment  that  could  dic- 
tate so  utter  an  absurdity !  Will  the  interests  of 
England  be  endangered  because  we  remove  a  very 
serious  burden  from  its  economic  life  and  its  educa- 
tional activity  ?  Shall  we  be  less  prosperous,  less 
happy,  less  respected,  for  correcting  an  antiquated 
and  foolish  practice?  These  things,  we  may  re- 
flect, were  not  stupid  at  the  time  when  they  were 
developed.  The  resolute  patriot  may,  if  he  wills, 
take  pride  in  the  relative  ingenuity  of  the  people 
who  invented  them.  Each  separate  national 
system  was  the  outcome  of  special  conditions, 
and  the  slender  commerce  between  the  different 
communities  at  the  time  they  were  developed  did 
not  require  a  rigorous  international  standard.  One 
bartered  by  the  piece  or  the  lump.  But  it  is  sheer 
folly  to  ignore  the  modern  transformation  of  inter- 
national life  :  to  fancy  that  our  unwillingness  to 
exert  ourselves,  even  for  our  own  advantage,  may 
be  ascribed  to  some  lofty  virtue. 

It  need  hardly  be  said  that  I  am  not  cherishing  a 
dream  of  spreading  at  once  over  the  entire  planet  a 
uniformity  of  language  and  coins  and  standards. 
The  leading  civilised  nations  might,  within  a  few 
years,  adopt  such  a  scheme  ;  and  a  certain  number 
of  the  smaller  and  less  advanced  nations,  which 
aspire  to  membership  of  the  civilised  group,  would 
probably  accept  the  reform  speedily  enough.  On 


THE  FOLLIES  OF  SHAM  PATRIOTISM    67 

the  other  hand,  the  permeation  of  the  lower  races 
with  our  ideas  would  be  a  slow  and  difficult  process  : 
a  part  of  that  general  task  of  civilising  the  whole 
race  which  we  have  sooner  or  later  to  confront. 
This  difficulty  does  not  at  all  affect  the  advantage 
we  should  gain  by  adopting  a  scheme  of  unification 
within  the  family  of  civilised  nations,  and  it  cannot 
be  pleaded  as  a  reason  for  postponement.  But  all 
the  reforms  I  have  hitherto  discussed  will,  when  they 
have  spread  over  the  more  highly  organised  countries, 
find  a  temporary  check  in  this  chaotic  jumble  of 
peoples  on  the  fringe  of  civilisation,  and  it  may  be 
useful  to  discuss  the  principles  which  ought  to 
inform  our  attitude  toward  them. 

Our  generation  looks  out  upon  these  backward 
branches  of  the  race,  not  only  with  a  finer  sentiment 
and  a  stricter  regard  for  principle  than  any  previous 
generation  did,  but  with  a  very  much  clearer  know- 
ledge of  their  meaning.  We  may,  of  course,  be 
faithless  to  our  principles  in  cases  :  we  may  casuisti- 
cally  wrap  a  piece  of  frank  buccaneering  of  the 
old  type  in  hypocritical  humanitarian  phrases. 
The  general  attitude  is,  however,  more  enlightened, 
as  these  pieces  of  hypocrisy  themselves  show.  We 
may  or  may  not  hold  the  doctrine  of  universal 
brotherhood ;  at  least  we  understand  the  true 
relation  of  these  more  backward  races  to  ourselves, 
and  we  are  in  a  much  better  position  to  determine 
our  right  and  our  duties.  We  have  advanced 
considerably  since,  little  more  than  half  a  century 
ago,  a  stern  moralist  like  Carlyle  could  defend  black- 


68  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

slavery  and  denounce  as  "  a  gospel  of  dirt  "  the 
scientific  revelation  which  threw  light  and  hope  on 
inferior  types  of  manhood. 

The  chief  difference  is  that  we  now  see  the  true 
relation  of  the  lower  races  to  the  higher.  It  is  false 
to  say,  as  Carlyle  did,  that  some  races  were  created 
with  higher  gifts  than  others,  and  were  therefore 
divinely  appointed  as  the  master-races.  The  notion 
is  as  absurd  as  the  old  and  profitable  legend  of  the 
laying  of  a  primitive  curse  on  Ham  and  his  black 
•descendants.  Difference  of  geographical  conditions 
is  the  chief  clue  to  the  unequal  development  of  the 
various  branches  of  the  race.  I  have  in  various 
works  developed  this  theme  and  will  not  linger  over 
it  here.  You  have  at  the  start  the  same  human 
material  and  capacities  in  all  the  scattered  groups. 
But  some  have  been  for  ages  isolated  from  the 
stimulating  contact  of  races  with  a  different  or  a 
higher  culture,  and  this  is  the  essential  condition  of 
advance.  Others  have,  by  sheer  chance,  been  so 
situated  that  they  enjoyed  this  stimulation  in  an 
extraordinary  degree.  On  this  principle  we  can 
understand  the  birth  of  civilisation  in  that  ferment- 
ing mass  of  peoples  which  settled  between  the 
Mediterranean  and  the  Persian  Gulf  ages  ago,  and 
the  direction  of  the  advancing  stream  of  culture, 
partly  eastward  to  India  and  China,  but  mainly 
in  the  more  favourable  north-western  direction. 

It  is,  therefore,  no  difference  of  aboriginal  outfit, 
but  a  difference  in  the  chances  of  migration  and 
situation,  which  accounts  for  the  cultural  diversity 


THE  FOLLIES  OF  SHAM  PATRIOTISM    69 

of  races.  Yet  we  must  not  at  once  infer  that  any 
lower  race  can,  on  this  account,  be  drawn  from  its 
isolation  and  lifted  to  the  higher  level.  There  is 
reason  to  believe  that  a  race  loses  its  educability 
if  it  remains  unprogressive  for  too  long  a  period. 
The  physiological  reason  may  be  that  the  skull 
closes  firmly,  at  a  relatively  early  age,  over  the 
brain  in  a  people  in  which  expansion  of  brain  after 
puberty  has  not  been  encouraged.  Take  the  three 
"  lower  races "  of  Australasia.  The  Tasmanian 
was  one  of  the  oldest  and  least  cultured  branches 
of  the  human  family,  and  he  died  out  within  a 
century  after  contact  with  the  whites.  The  Maori 
of  New  Zealand  is  the  most  recent  and  most  ad- 
vanced of  the  three  aboriginal  races.  With  the 
Polynesian,  he  is  closely  related  to  the  European 
or  Caucasic  race,  and  is  certainly  educable.  The 
Australian  black  comes  between  the  two  in  culture 
and  in  the  period  of  his  isolation.  Australian 
scientific  men  who  have  made  the  most  sympathetic 
efforts  to  uplift  the  black  tell  me  that  they  have 
failed,  and  the  race  seems  to  be  doomed. 

These  scientific  principles  have  discredited  the 
old  legendary  notions  about  the  lower  races,  but 
we  must  not  as  yet  make  dogmas  of  them.  Nothing 
but  candid  and  careful  experience  will  show  which 
races  are  educable  and  which  ineducable.  It  is  very 
probable  that  such  peoples  as  the  wild  Veddahs  of 
Ceylon,  the  Aetas  of  the  Philippines,  the  Yahgans 
of  Tierra  del  Fuego,  and  some  of  the  Central  African 
groups,  will  prove  ineducable.  Other  races  which 


70  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

have  been  considered  "  savage  "  are  already  proving 
educable,  either  as  a  body  or  in  large  numbers  of 
instances.  Many  peoples  have  not  been  tested  at 
all.  We  are  only  just  at  the  fringe  of  this  vast 
and  interesting  problem. 

In  regard  to  the  races  which,  after  humane  and 
thorough  experiment,  prove  entirely  ineducable, 
the  solution  does  not  offer  much  difficulty.  Once 
their  primitive  habits  are  disturbed,  and  they  begin 
to  live  on  a  pension  allotted  them  by  the  European 
nations  which  have  seized  their  territory,  they 
gradually  die  out.  A  very  good  case  may  be 
established  by  those  writers  who  hold  that  races 
which  cling  incurably  to  barbarism  ought  to  be 
painlessly  extirpated,  or  prevented  from  multiplying. 
Such  races  as  the  Australian  blacks  are  quite  familiar 
with  a  process  of  sterilisation  which  does  not 
interfere  with  their  enjoyment  of  life.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  life  led  by  these  domesticated  but  in- 
educable savages  is  hardly  worth  preserving  at  all. 
However,  as  they  are  disappearing,  one  need  not 
press  that  point.  The  claim  of  sane  humanitarians, 
that  we  have  no  right  to  interfere  with  their  con- 
ditions and  seize  their  territory,  is  quite  unsound. 
The  human  family  has  a  right  to  see  large  fertile 
regions  of  the  earth  developed.  Who  regrets 
to-day  that  the  Amerinds  were  pensioned  in  order 
to  find  room  for  Canada  and  the  United  States  and 
Brazil  and  Argentina  ?  Who  does  not  see  the 
advantage  of  peopling  Australia  with  a  fine  and 
advancing  civilisation  of  (eventually)  twenty  or 


TH     FOLLIES  OF  SHAM  PATRIOTISM    71 

thirty  million  progressive  whites  instead  of  a  few 
hundred  thousand  miserable  aboriginals  ? 

At  the  other  end  of  the  scale  we  have,  as  I  said, 
peoples  who  are  most  probably  or  certainly  educable. 
At  a  hazard  one  might  instance  the  Thibetans  and 
Siberian  Mongolians,  the  Koreans,  the  Maoris  and 
Polynesians,  the  Lapps  (of  the  same  blood  as  the 
Finns),  and  a  large  number  of  Asiatic  and  African 
peoples.  We  must  keep  in  mind  the  high  civilisa- 
tion reached  by  the  Amerinds  of  Peru,  whereas  their 
modern  descendants,  the  Quichwas,  seem  so  negli- 
gible. In  Africa  there  is  a  vast  amount  of  experi- 
ment and  classification  to  do,  and  already  the  pure 
Bantu  races  are  furnishing  scores  of  men  who 
are  susceptible  of  a  university  education.  I  know 
several  of  them  who  are  as  competent  and  well- 
educated  as  the  average  English  university  man. 

Has  the  white  race  a  duty  ("  the  white  man's 
burden  ")  to  attempt  to  civilise  the  coloured  races  ? 
I  speak  in  general  terms,  of  course.  It  is  sheer 
insolence  to  regard  the  Chinese  or  Burmese — one 
must  not  mention  the  Japanese — as  lower  races. 
Now,  speaking  in  the  abstract,  as  a  matter  of  general 
moral  principle,  the  white  has  no  clear  duty  to 
civilise  the  coloured  races.  The  sentiment  of 
brotherhood  may  inspire  a  feeling  of  duty  in  some, 
but  one  cannot  build  firmly  on  that  phrase.  It  is, 
however,  not  an  abstract  ethical  question.  The 
white  men  have,  in  point  of  fact,  spread  over  the 
globe,  and  they  are  in  a  fair  way  to  occupy  all  the 
territory  on  which  the  coloured  races  (except  the 


72  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

Chinese  and  Japanese  and  Burmese)  were  settled. 
Only  an  attitude  of  general  unscrupulousness  could 
ignore  the  obligation  which  this  seizure  of  territory 
implies.  England  and  Germany  have,  for  instance, 
occupied  the  islands  of  the  Pacific  and  made  their 
inhabitants  a  "  subject  race."  They  have  done 
this,  not  only  with  a  gross  lack  of  discrimination 
between  the  Polynesian  (who  is  certainly  educable) 
and  the  much  lower  Melanesian,  but  with  a  quite 
cynical  idea  of  the  "  civilising  "  process.  The  work 
has  been  left  to  sailors  and  travellers,  who  have 
decimated  the  population  by  spirits  and  syphilis, 
or  to  the  crudities  of  Christian  missionaries.  The 
joy  of  native  life  has  been  killed,  and  the  enforce- 
ment of  clothing  (which  the  natives  naturally  cast 
off  in  the  cooler  evening,  when  the  sensitive  European 
was  not  able  to  see  them)  has  led  to  an  appalling 
amount  of  pneumonia  and  phthisis.  We  have  done 
much  to  turn  a  wonderfully  happy  and  healthy 
people  into  a  gin-drinking  swaddled  caricature  of  a 
Bank  Holiday  crowd. 

But  the  lists  of  our  crimes  in  dealing  with  the 
lower  races  need  not  be  given  here.  If  we  white 
people  are  to  go  out  among  the  more  backward 
coloured  races,  and  to  profess  that  we  are  assuming 
the  paternal  function  of  administering  their  terri- 
tory, we  must  act  on  some  principle.  It  is  rather 
late  in  the  history  of  the  world  to  send  out  civilising 
expeditions  which  consist  of  missionaries  presenting 
copies  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  soldiers 
and  merchants  who,  in  flagrant  contradiction  to 


THE  FOLLIES  OF  SHAM  PATRIOTISM    73 

the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  exploit  the  natives  and 
appropriate  their  soil.  There  must  be  a  serious 
attempt  to  educate  them,  and  then  an  elimination 
of  the  unfit.  Africa  will  prove  a  formidable  region 
for  this  discriminating  work.  The  Mohammedans 
themselves  have  already  proved  that  many  of  its 
peoples  are  capable  of  culture. 

We  have  a  special  problem  in  our  treatment  of 
races  which,  like  the  Hindus  and  Egyptians,  have 
already  been  drawn  into  the  white  system.  Let  us 
be  quite  candid  with  ourselves  in  this  matter.  We 
appropriated  their  territory  for  our  advantage,  not 
theirs,  and  our  professed  modern  sentiments  are 
compelling  us  to  say  that  we  are  not  in  possession 
of  their  territory  in  their  interest.  We  protect  the 
Hindu  from  native  despots,  the  Egyptian  from  a 
cruel  Mahdi  or  Pacha,  the  retired  official  tells  you. 
However,  I  do  not  propose  that  we  should  in- 
vestigate the  title-deeds  of  all  our  existing  empires 
as  regards  their  oversea  possessions  ;  nor  do  I  in 
the  least  advocate  the  dismemberment  of  such  large 
unities  as  the  British  Empire.  But  the  principle 
on  which  some  would  stake  our  existence  in  India 
or  Egypt,  the  maxim  that  "  What  we  have  we 
hold," — which  is  often  illustrated  by  a  picture  of 
a  particularly  stupid-looking  bull-dog  guarding  the 
British  flag, — is  the  first  principle  of  the  pickpocket 
and  the  burglar.  Modern  sentiment  has  to  grant 
colonial  empires  a  sort  of  "  Bula  de  Composicion," 
such  as  the  Spanish  Church,  for  a  consideration, 
grants  to  pickpockets.  The  best  compromise  is 


74  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

that  the  peoples  which  are  to-day  linked  in  empires 
should  remain  linked  ;  not  as  dominant  and  subject 
peoples,  but  as  sister-nations  working  out  the 
destiny  of  the  race  according  to  the  highest  standards. 
This  implies  that,  as  they  assimilate  Western  culture 
(as  the  Hindus  are  quite  rapidly  doing),  they  shall 
be  more  and  more  entrusted  with  the  administra- 
tion of  their  own  countries.  The  very  different 
situation  of  colonies  need  not  be  discussed.  When 
Australia  and  Canada  find,  if  they  ever  do  find,  that 
it  is  to  their  interest  to  set  up  complete  independence, 
they  will  not  cut  the  cable  :  they  will  cast  it  off 
as  calmly  and  confidently  as  they  now  cast  off 
the  cable  of  an  Orient  liner  on  the  quays  at 
Sydney. 

Along  these  lines  we  may  forecast  the  future,  and 
very  slow,  drafting  of  the  more  backward  peoples 
into  the  homogeneous  family  of  the  more  civilised 
races.  The  unification  of  languages,  coinage,  etc., 
will  be  gradually  extended  to  them.  But  it  is 
not  my  purpose  in  this  work  to  contemplate  remote 
tasks  and  contingencies.  A  great  and  practicable 
reform  lies  at  our  doors.  The  overwhelming 
majority  of  the  race  are  already  incorporated  in 
civilised  nations,  and  the  work  of  organisation 
amongst  these  is  urgent  and  comparatively  easy. 
I  am  not  advocating  a  fantastic  and  lofty  scheme 
for  which  one  needs  to  be  prepared  by  the  accept- 
ance of  advanced  humanitarian  sentiments.  What 
I  am  pleading  for  is  the  application  to  international 
life  of  our  treasured  maxims  of  common-sense  and 


THE  FOLLIES  OF  SHAM  PATRIOTISM    75 

efficiency.  Those  simple  and  indisputable  maxims 
condemn  in  the  most  stringent  terms  the  patriotic 
shams  which  we  suffer  to  perplex  and  burden  our 
life.  Let  us  run  the  planet  on  recognised  business- 
principles. 


CHAPTER    IV 

POLITICAL   SHAMS 

THE  reforms  I  have  so  far  advocated  have  one 
peculiar  characteristic.  They  are  urgent,  easy  to 
grasp,  indisputable  in  principle,  and  enormously 
advantageous ;  but  they  need  international  co- 
operation, and  we  are  only  just  beginning  to  form 
those  friendly  international  contacts  which  may  lead 
to  agreement.  Hence  it  is  that,  although  very 
contentious  reforms  have  already  been  realised, 
these  linger,  as  we  say,  outside  the  range  of  practical 
politics.  But  this  very  phrase  reminds  us  at  once 
of  another  fundamental  irregularity  of  our  life. 
The  man  who  thinks  a  proposal  dismissed  because 
it  is  not  within  the  range  of  practical  politics  illus- 
trates admirably  the  indolence  of  mind  which  I 
am  assailing.  If  a  useful  and  economical  device 
were  put  before  him  in  his  business-capacity,  and 
he  were  told  that  his  business  had  no  room  for  it, 
he  would  at  once  ask  what  was  wrong  with  the 
business.  I  am  contending  all  through  for  the 
application  of  this  progressive  spirit  to  larger 
concerns  than  stores  or  workshops.  If  our  political 
system,  to  which  we  entrust  these  large  concerns, 


POLITICAL  SHAMS  77 

absolutely  ignores  some  of  our  finest  chances  of 
profit,  there  is  something  wrong  with  the  system. 
Our  servants  are  not  doing  what  they  are  paid  to  do. 

As  I  have  already  briefly  contended,  our  recent 
experience  furnishes  a  very  ghastly  confirmation 
of  this  suspicion.  The  British  Empire  will  survive 
the  dangers  that  beset  it,  though  it  will  be  deeply 
impaired  economically,  for  two  fundamental 
reasons  :  the  Allies  have  double  the  population 
of  the  Central  European  Powers,  and  they  have, 
including  in  this  respect  the  United  States,  far 
larger  ultimate  resources  in  material  and  money. 
The  fact  that  we  do  eventually  muddle  through 
will,  one  fears,  content  the  majority  of  our  people, 
but  the  thoughtful  patriot  will  ask  two  questions. 
How  many  hundred  millions  has  our  slowness  in 
mobilising  our  resources  cost  us,  by  protracting 
the  war  ?  And  what  is  likely  to  be  the  fate  of  the 
British  Empire  if,  with  a  similar  slackness,  it  has 
at  some  later  date  to  meet  a  numerically  equal  and 
far  more  alert  enemy  ? 

Let  me  briefly  recount  the  facts  which  show 
that  our  national  business  has  been  grossly  mis- 
managed. Can  any  person  look  back  on  all  the 
facts  which  are  now  public  property  and  say  that 
our  soldiers  and  statesmen  were  innocent  in  not 
perceiving  the  grave  possibility  of  war  with  Germany 
at  any  time  in  the  last  three  years  ?  That,  however, 
will  scarcely  be  said  :  the  readiness  of  our  fleet  is  a 
sufficient  reply.  We  know  further  that  the  general 
character  of  the  war  was  foreseen.  England  was 


78  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

to  help  France  and  Belgium,  on  French  or  Belgian 
soil.  England's  co-operation  on  land  was,  as 
events  have  shown,  vitally  necessary.  Yet  the 
unpreparedness  of  Britain  for  a  great  continental 
campaign  was  entirely  scandalous.  No  doubt 
there  would  have  been  a  risk  in  openly  enlarging 
the  army  or  creating  great  stores  of  material. 
Germany  would,  in  its  unamiable  way,  have  asked 
questions.  Tender-hearted  Members  of  Parlia- 
ment would  have  denounced  our  provocative  pro- 
ceedings. But  a  preparation  of  plans,  a  census  of 
our  resources,  a  scheme  for  the  immediate  enlist- 
ment of  the  business-ability  of  the  country  and  the 
full  use  of  all  our  industrial  machinery — these  and 
a  dozen  other  most  important  measures  could  have 
been  taken  in  this  country  as  safely  and  secretly 
as  they  were  in  Germany.  Not  only  were  they  not 
taken,  but  the  military  preparations  were  actually 
relaxed.  It  has  transpired,  and  is  not  disputed, 
that  our  great  Arsenal  was  only  partially  occupied  ; 
and  Mr.  A.  Chamberlain  has  publicly  stated  that 
Kynochs  had  for  the  year  1914 — the  expected  year 
of  war — a  Government  order  two-thirds  less  than 
they  are  capable  of  executing  in  a  week,  and  do  now 
execute  in  a  week. 

The  second  fact  is  the  remarkable  failure  to  fore- 
cast the  conditions  of  the  war.  If  it  be  urged  that 
a  layman  cannot  judge  how  far  such  a  failure  is 
culpable,  the  answer  is  prompt :  the  German 
authorities,  who  had  had  no  more  experience  of 
war  than  we,  did  forecast  the  conditions.  Their 


POLITICAL  SHAMS  79 

minute  and  energetic  elaboration  of  the  whole 
scheme  of  the  war  contrasts  extraordinarily  with 
the  sluggish  and  conventional  ease  of  our  authorities. 

The  third  and  gravest  fact  is  our  appalling  and 
costly  slowness  in  mobilising  our  resources  when 
the  war  began.  Six  months  after  the  outbreak  of 
war  I  went  over  a  very  large  engineering  shop  in 
the  north.  Out  of  hundreds  of  men  only  a  score 
or  two  were  engaged  on  war-material :  and  one 
of  the  two  objects  on  which  this  mere  handful  of 
men  were  engaged  has  proved  to  be  wholly  valueless. 
At  that  time,  and  for  months  afterwards,  the  workers 
of  Britain  were  encouraged  in  their  easy  ways,  and 
the  bulk  of  the  manufacturers  were  encouraged  to 
go  on  with  their  usual  business,  by  official  assur- 
ances that  no  greater  effort  was  needed.  When  our 
disgusted  soldiers  sent  us  a  message  that,  not  "  the 
weather,"  but  a  scandalous  shortage  of  ammunition 
and  machine-guns  kept  them  back,  the  Prime 
Minister,  quoting  the  "  highest  available  authority," 
publicly  declared  this  to  be  untrue.  We  were 
asked  rather  to  admire  the  way  in  which  we  had 
dispatched  the  greatest  expeditionary  force  known 
in  history :  as  if  the  enormous  progress  of  modern 
times  did  not  make  this  superiority  a  matter  of 
course.  When  criticism  increased,  we  cried  for  the 
gag  and  the  public  prosecutor,  and  we  garlanded 
the  portraits  of  the  very  men  who  had  disgraced 
us  ;  and  we  agreed  to  the  retention  or  promotion  of 
incompetent  men,  on  obvious  party-grounds. 

Happily  one  minister  had  the  grit  and  patriotism 


8o  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

to  call  to  his  aid  a  group  of  business-men,  and  the 
facts  could  no  longer  be  concealed.  Mr.  Lloyd 
George  admitted  that  since  the  beginning  of  the 
war,  we  had  increased  a  thousandfold  our  pro- 
duction of  munitions,  yet  were  still  far  behind  the 
Germans  and  far  short  of  our  needs  ;  and  at  last, 
eleven  months  after  the  outbreak  of  war,  we  began 
to  organise,  or  at  least  to  ascertain,  our  resources. 
Again  we  loudly  congratulated  ourselves  on  our 
energy.  We  cried  shame  on  all  critics  and  pessi- 
mists and  people  who  wanted  more.  We  fancied 
ourselves  in  the  character  of  Atlas,  taking  the  whole 
burden  on  our  massive  shoulders,  to  spare  our 
weaker  Allies.  But  the  sinister  light  which  this 
late  increase  of  output  threw  on  the  first  six  months, 
or  more,  of  indolent  incompetence  was  quite  dis- 
regarded. We  genially  overlooked  the  fact  that 
the  delay  of  our  advance  was  costing  us  nearly  a 
hundred  millions  a  month.  We  allowed  less  pro- 
minent affairs  to  be  conducted  with  the  same  in- 
dolent insufficiency.  The  most  absurdly  inadequate 
measures  were  taken  to  control  the  prices  of  food 
and  coal,  and  scarcely  a  thought  was  given  to  the 
tremendous  economic  problem  which  will  confront 
us  when  the  war  is  over,  or  to  the  means  of  recouping 
ourselves  by  a  systematic  promotion  of  our  oversea- 
trade. 

In  a  word,  the  magnificent  organisation  and 
ordered  national  devotion  of  the  German  people 
make  the  conduct  of  England  during  the  first  year 
of  the  war  seem  clumsy,  lazy,  and  full  of  danger 


POLITICAL  SHAMS  81 

for  the  future.  For  this  the  chief  blame  quite 
obviously  falls  on  our  statesmen.  English  soldiers 
have  at  least  been  second  to  none  in  the  field  : 
English  artisans  have,  since  the  need  was  acknow- 
ledged, worked  magnificently.  It  is  the  directing 
brain  that  was  sluggish  and  incompetent.  The 
magnitude  of  the  sudden  task  does  not  excuse  our 
rulers,  nor  does  the  very  large  service  that  was 
actually  done — which  I  do  not  for  a  moment  over- 
look— lessen  the  scandal.  If  a  political  machine 
does  not  know  how  to  enlarge  itself  in  less  than 
twelve  months  to  meet  a  new  and  very  urgent 
task,  especially  a  task  that  it  ought  to  have  foreseen, 
it  is  unfit  to  control  our  national  destiny.  Our 
governmental  system  has  proved  itself  most 
dangerously  and  mischievously  unfit  to  meet  such 
a  national  emergency,  and  this  catastrophic  experi- 
ence may  encourage  the  reader  to  examine  with 
patience  the  criticisms  which  I  propose  to  pass  on  it. 
Here  again  we  submit  to  the  tyranny  of  a  largely 
obsolete  tradition.  When  the  story  of  the  develop- 
ment of  human  institutions  can  be  written  with  a 
detachment  of  which  we  are  yet  incapable,  one  of 
the  strangest  pages  will  be  that  which  tells  of  the 
evolution  of  Church  and  State.  From  the  early 
days  when  some  exceptionally  powerful  warrior 
is  raised  on  his  shield  and  saluted  as  chief  or  king, 
and  when  some  weird  individual  earns  the  repute 
of  being  able  to  control  or  propitiate  the  mighty 
powers  of  the  environing  world,  government  and 
religion  steadily  advance  to  a  commanding  position 
7 


82  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

in  the  life  of  the  people.  The  two  men  of  power, 
the  king  and  the  priest,  must  have  establishments 
in  accord  with  their  value  to  the  tribe,  and  the 
palace  and  the  temple  rise  in  spacious  dignity  above 
the  mean  cluster  of  huts.  Time  after  time  the 
race  turns  to  examine  the  tradition  which  has  been 
so  deeply  impressed  on  it,  and  kings  and  gods  are 
cast  from  their  thrones  ;  but  new  dynasties  always 
arise.  Of  Rome,  no  less  than  of  Thebes  or  Nineveh, 
it  is  the  monuments  of  kings  and  gods  that  survive. 
Only  a  few  centuries  ago  the  European  city  con- 
sisted mainly  of  two  institutions  :  the  palace  and 
the  cathedral.  The  bulk  of  the  citizens  huddled  in 
squalid  fever-stricken  houses  beyond  the  fringe  of 
the  estates  of  their  secular  and  priestly  rulers. 

The  modern  age,  with  its  inconvenient  questions 
and  its  bold  speech,  arrives.  Commerce  develops, 
and  the  palace  and  cathedral  disappear  in  the  forest 
of  soaring  buildings.  When  the  roofs  of  the  new 
commerce  and  the  new  commoner  rise  to  a  level 
with  the  roof  of  the  palace  or  the  cathedral,  when 
men  are  no  longer  overshadowed  by  the  old  powers, 
the  imagination  is  released.  The  divine  right  of 
kings  goes  in  a  fury  of  revolutionary  flame  :  kings 
must  henceforth  rule  by  human  right  and  answer 
at  a  human  tribunal,  which  is  more  exacting  and 
alert  than  the  old  tribunal.  Yet  the  power  of  the 
dead  tradition  is  amazing.  In  England  men  still 
bow  reverently  when  the  king  addresses  them  as 
"  my  subjects  "  and  talks  of  "  my  empire  "  :  still 
crown  every  entertainment,  spiritual  or  gastronomic, 


POLITICAL  SHAMS  83 

with  fervent  aspirations  which  would  lead  an  ill- 
informed  spectator  to  imagine  that  they  regarded 
the  king's  health  as  mystically  connected  with  the 
health  of  the  nation  :  still  describe  bishops  and  the 
heads  of  families  which  have  been  sufficiently  long 
idle  and  wealthy  as  their  "  lords." 

These  archaeological  survivals  are,  no  doubt, 
innocuous,  if  irritating.  The  more  serious  feature 
is  that  they  help  to  make  so  many  people  insensible 
of  the  miserable  compromises  we  endure  in  our 
reorganised  State.  They  are  part  of  that  super- 
abundant ash  which  clogs  and  dulls  the  fire  of  the 
nation's  life.  The  nineteenth  century,  rightly  and 
inevitably,  adopted  a  democratic  scheme  of  public 
administration.  It  was  seen  that,  if  the  king  were 
not  so  close  a  friend  of  the  Almighty  as  had  been 
supposed,  there  was  no  visible  reason  why  the 
destinies  of  the  nation  should  be  entrusted  to  his 
judgment  :  which  was,  as  a  rule,  not  humanly 
impressive.  Luckily,  certain  nations  had  won  the 
right  to  do  a  good  deal  of  talking  before  the  king 
came  to  a  decision,  or  the  right  to  hold  Parliaments, 
and  Europe  generally  adopted  this  model.  The 
Parliament  House  now  towered  upward  in  the  city, 
and  it  did  the  real  business  of  directing  the  nation's 
affairs.  The  king  became  a  kind  of  grand  seal 
for  the  measures  enacted  by  Parliament.  Some 
nations,  the  number  of  which  is  increasing,  regarded 
the  seal  as  a  costly  and  avoidable  luxury,  and 
abolished  it :  some  kept  the  king,  with  all  his 
stately  language  and  pretty  robes  and  sparkling 


84  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

jewellery,  and  abolished  the  "  lords  "  :  some  kept 
the  king  and  the  lords,  but  deprived  them  of  real 
power.  The  English  nation,  which  is  famous  for 
its  common-sense,  its  audacity,  and  its  ability, 
belongs  to  the  last  group.  It  invented  that  remark- 
able phrase,  "  self-government  "  :  which  ingeniously 
preserves  the  fiction  that  someone  has  a  right  to 
govern  other  people,  yet  conciliates  the  modern 
spirit  by  intimating  that  the  people  really  govern 
their  governors. 

Into  the  extraordinary  confusion  of  forms  and 
formulae  which  has  resulted  from  this  compromise 
it  would  be  waste  of  time  to  enter.  Does  it  really 
matter  that  we  allow  our  king  to  put  on  our  coins 
a  flattering  portrait  of  himself,  with  an  intimation 
that  he  rules  as  "by  the  grace  of  God  "  ?  He  is 
quite  conscious  that  he  rules  us — if  his  melodramatic 
relation  to  us  may  be  called  ruling — on  the  under- 
standing that  he  never  contradicts  us.  We  are 
not  now  knocked  on  the  head,  except  by  an  intoxi- 
cated patriot,  if  we  refuse  to  stand  while  our  neigh- 
bours chant  their  insincere  incantation  about  his 
health  :  we  go,  not  to  the  Tower,  but  to  the  ordinary 
law-court,  if  we  mention  his  personal  frailties ; 
and  the  portentous  seriousness  with  which  he  takes 
his  robes  and  his  formulae  injures  none,  and  amuses 
many.  No  doubt,  slovenly  mental  habits  are 
always  to  be  deplored,  yet  these  things  are  not  in 
themselves  important  enough  to  be  included  in  a 
list  of  serious  reforms.  What  we  do  need  to  examine 
critically  is  this  scheme  of  self-government  by 


POLITICAL  SHAMS  85 

which  we  now  manage  our  national  affairs  :  very 
badly,  it  appears. 

This  political  machinery  is  divided  into  two 
sections :  municipal  government  and  national 
government.  The  former,  from  which  every  element 
of  "  government  "  except  the  name  has  departed, 
need  not  be  considered  at  length.  It  consists  of 
groups  of  citizens  who  are  understood  to  excel  in 
public  spirit  and  self-sacrifice,  so  that  they  devote 
a  large  part  of  their  time  to  the  unpaid  service  of 
their  fellow-citizens.  Every  few  years  a  man,  of 
whom  you  had  probably  never  heard  before,  calls 
to  implore  you,  with  a  quite  painful  humility  and 
courtesy,  to  allow  him  to  discharge  this  self-denying 
function.  The  next  day  another  man,  of  whom 
also  you  had  never  heard  before,  calls  to  inform  you, 
in  discreet  language,  that  his  rival  is  a  spendthrift, 
a  rogue,  or  a  fool ;  and  that  he  is  the  man  to  repre- 
sent you  with  due  regard  to  economy  and  with 
absolute  disinterestedness.  You  probably  refrain 
from  voting  for  either,  since  you  have  not  the 
abundant  leisure  of  a  libel-court.  Your  streets  will 
somehow  get  paved,  and  your  children  schooled, 
and  you  will  pay  the  bill.  But  you  may  discover 
after  a  time  that  the  air  is  thick  with  charges  of 
"  jobbery,"  or  that  some  local  councillor  has  been 
promoted  to  the  higher  and  more  lucrative  political 
world  on  the  ground  of  "  many  years'  experience  of 
local  administration." 

If  you  happen  to  live  in  the  Metropolis,  where  the 
intelligence  of  the  nation  is  clotted,  so  to  say,  you 


86  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

find  municipal  life  even  more  complex  than  this. 
The  eager  rivals  who  solicit  the  honour  of  doing 
your  work  for  nothing  are  divided  into  bitterly 
hostile  schools.  Each  school  spends  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  pounds  in  a  periodical  effort  to  con- 
vince you  that  the  other  school  is  going  to  swindle 
you.  Each  plasters  the  wall  with  repulsive  typical 
portraits  of  its  opponents,  and  you  see  yourself 
depicted  as  a  weak  and  amiable,  but  small-witted, 
figure  (or,  perhaps,  as  a  burly  and  very  stupid- 
looking  farmer),  whose  pockets  are  being  picked. 
Each  produces  a  most  exact  statistical  proof  that 
its  opponents  have  actually  picked  your  pockets, 
and  that  the  "  reds  "  or  "  blues  "  are  the  only 
people  with  a  really  disinterested  desire  to  spend 
some  hours  every  day  in  the  gratuitous  discharge  of 
public  duties.  They  spend  great  sums  of  money 
every  few  years  for  the  purpose  of  securing  this 
thankless  burden  and  facing  the  vituperation  of 
their  opponents.  You  seek  illumination  in  the 
press,  and  you  find,  in  rival  journals,  a  mass  of 
contradictory  statements  and  mutual  accusations 
of  lying.  However,  the  system  is  thoroughly 
British  in  its  encouragement  of  individual  action 
and  public  spirit,  and  you  overlook  all  the  direct 
and  indirect  corruption  it  fosters. 

What  is  a  man  to  do  ?  One  can  at  least  search 
very  rigorously  the  credentials  and  the  public 
action  of  the  man  who  "  solicits  your  vote,"  and 
encourage  the  appearance  of  really  independent 
and  fine-spirited  men  and  women.  I  have,  naturally, 


POLITICAL  SHAMS  87 

described  the  broad  features  and  general  abuses  of 
the  system,  but  there  are,  of  course,  large  numbers  of 
men  in  it  who  are  sincerely  disinterested.  In  the 
main,  however,  municipal  politics  is  tainted  and 
complicated  by  the  party-system  of  the  large 
political  world,  and  to  this  we  may  turn. 

That  section  of  the  political  machine  which 
controls  national  affairs  is  obviously  of  the  first 
importance.  On  its  working  rests  the  grave  issue 
of  peace  or  war  ;  to  it  is  entrusted,  in  the  last 
resort,  the  great  task  of  educating  the  nation  ;  and 
through  it  alone  can  we  secure  any  of  those  numerous 
reforms  which  are  to  undo  the  tyranny  of  shams 
and  abolish  so  much  avoidable  misery  and  con- 
fusion. One  ought  therefore  to  be  gratified  to  see 
how  large  a  place  politics  occupies  in  the  public 
mind,  which  is  otherwise  so  little  inclined  to  serious 
matters,  and  in  the  public  press,  which  so  faithfully 
mirrors  the  thought  of  the  nation  :  to  see  how  the 
prominent  or  eloquent  politician  surpasses  in  public 
esteem  the  greatest  artist  or  scientist,  and  even 
rivals  in  popularity  the  prettiest  actress  of  the  hour  : 
to  see  that  four-fifths  of  our  public  honours  are 
reserved  for  politicians  and  statesmen,  and  for 
those  less  gifted  but  more  wealthy  men  who  give 
them  practical  support.  Unhappily,  when  one 
looks  closely  into  this  apotheosis  of  politics,  one 
finds  that  its  merit  is  merely  superficial  :  that  a 
very  large  proportion  of  the  more  thoughtful  people 
in  every  civilised  community  look  on  politics  with 
disdain,  and  that  some  of  the  more  independent 


88  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

of  our  politicians  confess  that  one  must  almost 
lay  aside  one's  honesty  and  ideals  on  entering  the 
political  world. 

A  series  of  grave  struggles  and  threats  of  civil 
war  in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century 
inaugurated  the  present  political  phase  in  Europe. 
It  transpired  after  Waterloo  that  the  English 
parliamentary  system,  in  which  our  statesmen  took 
such  pride,  was  a  hollow  and  corrupt  sham.  A 
comparatively  few  wealthy  landowners  controlled 
the  nation,  and  bought  votes  for  their  nominees. 
After  some  years  of  agitation  the  working  men  of 
the  great  manufacturing  centres  formed  armies 
and  threatened  to  force  the  doors  of  Westminster 
at  the  point  of  the  pike.  This  elicited  a  system  of 
restricted,  but  real,  popular  representation.  Later 
enlargements  of  the  franchise  improved  the  system, 
and  to-day  some  six  or  seven  million  adult  males 
elect  our  legislators.  Until  recently  this  scheme 
was  largely  frustrated  by  the  power  of  a  non- 
elected  House  to  suppress  any  measure  which  did 
not  please  a  privileged  minority,  but  this  is  now 
materially  modified.  Six  million  free  and  adult 
representatives  of  the  nation  appoint  and  control 
the  men  who  make  our  laws,  and  direct  the  king 
how  to  act. 

But  in  practice  this  admirable  theory  becomes 
a  mockery  and  an  illusion.  It  may  be  taken  as  a 
Euclidean  postulate  that  out  of  six  million  people 
of  any  civilised  nation  four  or  five  millions  will 
be — shall  we  say  ? — somnolent  :  not  from  want  of 


POLITICAL  SHAMS  89 

brain,  but  from  want  of  constant  exercise  of  it.  A 
very  earnest  idealist  of  the  last  century,  Mr.  George 
Jacob  Holyoake,  proposed  that,  for  the  great 
efficiency  of  our  political  machinery,  every  elector 
should,  before  he  received  a  vote,  be  compelled  to 
pass  an  examination  in  political  economy  and  con- 
stitutional history.  Since  few  Members  of  Parlia- 
ment, to  say  nothing  of  voters,  would  have  passed 
the  examination,  the  proposal  was  rejected,  and  the 
education  of  the  voter  was  left  to  the  interested 
political  parties  and  to  the  press  which  supported 
them,  or  was  supported  by  them.  The  result 
was  that  two  rival  organisations,  roughly  corre- 
sponding to  the  two  attitudes  of  the  modern  mind 
toward  new  ideas  (progressive  and  conservative), 
gradually  increased  in  wealth  and  power  until 
they  were  able  to  control  the  electorate  and  ex- 
clude from  representation  every  finer  shade  of 
political  thought.  The  machinery  by  which  this 
is  done  does  not  leap  to  the  eyes,  as  the  French 
say,  and  the  average  elector  proudly  contrasts 
our  political  system  with  that  of  most  other 
nations. 

Candidly,  we  may  take  some  pride  in  the  con- 
trast. The  struggles  and  sacrifices  of  our  fathers 
have  won  for  us  a  system  which  is  far  superior 
to  that  which  has  hitherto  prevailed  in  Russia,  to 
the  despotic  medievalism  of  Prussia,  to  the  grave 
insincerity  of  Spanish  political  life,  to  the  confusion 
and  occasional  corruption  of  French  or  Italian 
politics,  to  the  remarkable  activity  which  precedes 


go  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

a.  presidential  election  in  the  United  States.  Our 
political  life  is  relatively  free  from  large  corruption. 
I  happened  to  be  in  New  Zealand  when  the 
"  Marconi  Scandal  "  was  agitating  England,  and 
I  remember  politicians  of  that  progressive  little 
land  smiling  at  the  word  "  scandal  "  and  hinting 
that  they  were  more  adventurous.  Some  of  our 
discontent  is,  no  doubt,  due  to  women-writers  who 
magnify  the  evil  in  order  to  persuade  us  to  enlist 
their  refining  influence.  I  do  not,  in  fact,  think 
that  Mr.  Belloc  and  Mr.  Cecil  Chesterton  have 
proved  some  of  the  graver  charges  which  they  brought 
in  their  indictment  of  our  "  servile  State."  It 
will  need  something  more  than  a  list  of  matri- 
monial connections  to  persuade  us  that  Mr.  Lloyd 
George  and  Mr.  Winston  Churchill  were  in  the 
habit  of  meeting,  amiably  and  clandestinely,  Mr. 
Bonar  Law  and  Mr.  F.  E.  Smith  for  the  collusive 
arrangement  of  our  laws. 

Yet  there  is  enough  in  the  familiar  criticisms  of 
our  political  machinery  to  justify  one  in  saying 
that  the  political  sham  is,  even  now,  intolerable. 
What,  candidly,  is  the  procedure  ?  A  general 
election  is  announced,  and  two  men  call,  or  send 
agents,  to  solicit  the  honour  of  representing  you  in 
Parliament.  In  the  district  in  which  I  write  at  the 
moment  one  candidate  is  a  wealthy  and  muddle- 
headed  Liberal :  the  other  is  a  wealthy  and 
(politically)  equally  muddle-headed  Conservative. 
Neither  of  them  has  the  remotest  idea  of  repre- 
senting my  national  wishes, — they  would  blush  to 


POLITICAL  SHAMS  91 

be  suspected  of  it, — and  neither  has  ever  spoken  in 
Parliament ;  so  I  have  never  yet  voted. 

But  I  am  an  eccentric  man.  Let  us  take  a  normal 
case.  You  notice,  as  a  rule,  that  during  the  few 
years  before  the  election  a  wealthy  man  has  been 
openly  suffered,  or  directed  from  his  party-head- 
quarters, to  "  nurse  "  the  constituency.  Hundreds 
will  cast  votes  for  him  solely  because  they  fear  a 
withdrawal  of  his  subscriptions  to  their  chapels 
and  football  clubs,  and  of  his  open-handed  philan- 
thropy. As  the  election  approaches,  another  can- 
didate appears.  He  also  is,  as  a  rule,  a  wealthy 
man,  and  he  spends  between  one  and  two  thousand 
pounds  in  disturbing  the  judgment  and  inflaming 
the  emotions  of  the  voters.  Pictorial  posters, 
which  might  have  adorned  the  walls  of  some 
Pyrenean  cavern  in  the  Old  Stone  Age,  are  massed 
near  the  doors  of  some  dark  "  committee  room  "  or 
spread  over  the  town.  The  brain  struggles  feebly 
with  the  contradictory  statements  of  orators  and 
journals.  And  on  the  day  of  the  election  the  two 
wealthy  rivals  for  the  honour  of  printing  M.P.  on 
their  cards,  and  the  duty  of  voting  as  they  are 
directed  by  their  superiors,  flood  the  district, 
although  it  has  an  excellent  tram-service,  with 
expensive  cars  and  carriages,  to  take  the  tired 
working  man  to  the  poll. 

Possibly  one  of  the  candidates  is  not  a  wealthy 
man,  and  you  begin  to  speculate  on  the  source  of 
his  thousand  pounds,  or  even  three  hundred  pounds. 
Very  few  voters  do  inquire,  of  course ;  most  of  them 


92  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

would  be  surprised  to  know  how  much  a  man  spends 
in  soliciting  the  honour  of  representing  them — 
he  has  usually  a  great  contempt  for  them — in 
Parliament.  The  more  inquisitive  voter,  however, 
would  discover  that  the  poorer  candidate  is  in  a 
special  sense  the  representative  of  a  particular  party, 
and  he  would  touch  the  fringe  of  a  peculiar  and 
ingenious  system.  I  happened  one  day  to  mention 
to  a  friend  certain  advanced  opinions  of  a  Member 
of  Parliament.  "That,"  he  said  grimly,  "will 

interest  my  father-in-law;    he  finances  Mr.  ." 

Through  the  party-organisation  this  wealthy  and 
highly  respectable  manufacturer  paid  the  election 
expenses  and  part  of  the  income — Members  of 
Parliament  had  not  then  a  salary — of  candidates 
or  Members  in  various  remote  towns.  The  manu- 
facturer, or  the  various  manufacturers  who  do 
this  sort  of  thing,  will  eventually  be  knighted  or 
baronetted  ;  their  sons  will  have  a  chance  of  a 
secretaryship,  or  even  of  Cabinet  rank.  The 
secretly  subsidised  Member  will  go  to  Westminster, 
an  automatic  voter.  In  fact,  since  a  candidate 
must  generally  have  the  sanction  of  the  central 
organisation  of  one  or  other  party  before  he  can 
venture  to  solicit  votes,  even  wealth  does  not  usually 
relieve  him  of  the  party-tyranny. 

What,  then,  is  the  party  ?  It  is  not  so  much 
a  creed  as  a  wealthy  and  powerful  organisation. 
Once  it  was  a  group  of  men  who  happened  to  have 
the  same  ideas.  By  a  natural  evolution  of  organisa- 
tion— one  sees  the  same  thing  in  the  evolution  of 


POLITICAL  SHAMS  93 

Churches — it  has  become  rather  a  machine  for  im- 
pressing those  ideas  on  men.  In  a  sense,  it  is  an 
oligarchy.  We  must  remember  such  facts  as  the 
dismissal  of  Mr.  Balfour,  and  the  powerlessness  of 
Mr.  Asquith  to  get  rid  of  a  certain  Minister  whom  he 
disliked.  The  power  of  the  front-benchers  is  not 
absolute.  But  on  the  whole  the  party  is  an  aris- 
tocracy of  wealthy  men,  titled  men,  and  able  men, 
which  rules  the  country  for  a  term  of  years.  Its 
leading  agents  are  the  Ministers  and  Whips  :  the  body 
of  the  party  is  an  association  for  carrying  out  its 
will,  and  for  adding  the  attractions  of  parochial 
entertainment  and  cheap  club-life  to  the  more 
austere  cult  of  ideas.  Its  revenue  is,  to  a  great 
extent,  secret ;  but  the  annual  lists  of  honours 
reveal  very  plainly  that  it  conducts  an  unblushing 
traffic  in  such  things.  The  reasons  alleged  in  the 
published  list  are  often  too  ludicrous  for  words. 
Privately  one  can  often  ascertain  the  exact  price. 

With  this  wealth  the  party-aristocracy  controls 
the  electoral  campaign  and  the  elected  Members. 
It  has,  further,  at  its  disposal  a  large  number  of 
highly  paid  positions,  or  functions  which  lead  to 
highly  paid  positions,  or  profitable  little  occasional 
jobs,  or  political  pensions,  or  a  Civil  List  (which 
is  grossly  abused),  and  so  on.  These  it  dangles 
before  the  eyes  of  impecunious  or  ambitious 
critics.  Here  are  two  facts  within  my  slender 
personal  knowledge  of  these  matters.  A  very 
influential  Socialist  (my  informant)  was  invited  to 
a  small  dinner  of  the  party-aristocrats  and  diplo- 


94  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

matically  informed  that  he  might  be  useful  in  office  : 
another  drastic  critic  was  assured  by  a  Cabinet 
Minister,  through  a  mutual  friend  (my  informant), 
that  nothing  would  be  done  for  him  until  he  ceased 
to  criticise. 

The  system  is,  on  both  sides  of  the  House,  corrupt, 
demoralising,  and  intensely  prejudicial  to  the 
interests  of  the  country.  We  found  its  danger 
during  the  South  African  War,  and  we  perceive 
it  far  more  plainly  to-day.  What  ought  to  be  the 
brightest  intellectual  fire  in  the  land  is  sluggish, 
choked  with  ash,  served  often  with  inferior  material. 
The  permanent  departments  of  State  which  depend 
on  it  are  correspondingly  sluggish.  In  an  emer- 
gency it — after  a  humiliating  trial  of  its  own  ability 
— turns  to  business-men.  Its  whole  tradition  and 
procedure  are  abominable.  Men  who  are  poor 
and  independent  may  bruise  their  shins  on  the 
doors  in  vain.  Men  of  no  ability  are  promoted, 
even  to  peerages  and  the  Cabinet,  because  their 
fathers  contributed  much  to  the  party's  purse  or 
prestige,  and  they  themselves  will  at  least  be  loyal. 
Men  who  raise  critical  voices  in  the  House  are 
snubbed  and  suppressed  :  men  who  criticise  outside 
are  safely  ignored.  The  ablest  and  the  most 
sincere  men  in  the  party — men  like  Sir  Edward 
Grey  and  Mr.  Lloyd  George — acquiesce  in  all  this. 

The  electoral  system  and  the  procedure  of  the 
House  of  Commons  are  designed  to  protect  this 
monstrous  scheme.  The  large  fee  which  is  exacted 
of  candidates  and  the  very  large  sums  which  wealthy 


POLITICAL  SHAMS  95 

men  are  allowed  to  spend  on  elections  intimidate 
able  and  independent,  but  impecunious,  men. 
The  election  is  spread  over  a  week  or  two  in  order 
to  give  wealthy  men,  who  may  be  relied  upon  to 
support  the  constitutional  parties,  an  opportunity 
of  voting  in  several  constituencies,  and  in  order 
that  Ministers  may  give  more  aid  to  their  weaker 
supporters.  For  the  polling-day  Saturday  is  avoided 
as  much  as  possible,  because  on  that  day  a  larger 
percentage  of  the  workers  would  vote,  and  they  are 
apt  to  vote  against  the  constitutional  parties.  Cars 
and  carriages  are  permitted  because  the  candidates 
of  the  workers  will  easily  be  surpassed  in  this  well- 
known  advantage  by  candidates  of  the  great  parties. 
Minorities  are  hopelessly  excluded  from  representa- 
tion, such  as  they  would  have  under  a  system  of 
proportional  representation,  because  they  would 
send  to  the  House  a  number  of  independent  Members 
who  would  disturb  all  the  calculations  of  the  Whip 
and  all  the  tricks  of  party-government.  Under  a 
system  of  proportional  representation  it  would  be 
quite  easy  for  some  scores  of  able  and  earnest  men 
to  secure  election  at  very  small  cost,  by  merely 
circulating  declarations  of  their  views ;  but  this, 
or  a  grave  increase  of  the  Labour  Members,  would 
wreck  the  party-system,  and  therefore  the  most 
democratic  of  our  orthodox  politicians  maintain  all 
the  abuses  and  injustices  of  our  system. 

The  division  of  constituencies  is  further  designed 
to  protect  this  iniquitous  and  corrupt  scheme. 
Universities,  the  City  of  London,  and  boroughs 


96  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

like  Durham,  Bury  St.  Edmunds,  and  Montgomery 
— each  of  which  has  a  population  of  less  than 
17,000  souls — have  an  equal  right  to  one  unit  of 
representation  in  Parliament  with  Wandsworth, 
the  Romford  division  of  Essex,  or  the  Harrow 
division  of  Middlesex,  each  of  which  has  more  than 
a  quarter  of  a  million  inhabitants.  Eighty-three 
constituencies,  most  of  them  having  a  large  pro- 
portion of  the  more  intelligent  workers,  have  a 
population  of  more  than  100,000  each  :  forty-four 
constituencies  have  a  population  of  less  than 
40,000  each.  In  other  words,  half  the  people  of 
England  and  Wales  elect  167  Members  of  Parlia- 
ment :  the  other,  and  notoriously  less  intelligent 
half,  elect  323  Members  of  Parliament. 

From  Gladstone  downwards  even  our  most 
"  democratic  "  statesmen  have  acquiesced  in  these 
enormities  of  our  electoral  system  ;  and  they  have 
meantime  expended  much  eloquence  on  the  in- 
justice of  the  Prussian  system,  and  have  expressed 
ardent  hopes  for  the  emancipation  of  the  people  of 
Italy,  or  Bulgaria,  or  Persia,  or  some  other  remote 
land.  Yet  these  features  of  our  electoral  scheme  are 
retained  solely  in  order  to  protect  the  party-system  : 
to  keep  in  the  hands  of  a  group,  which  is  largely 
hereditary  and  is  at  all  events  a  small  and  jealous 
caste,  all  the  prestige  and  emoluments  of  the  higher 
positions.  Even  the  grave  peril  of  a  national  catas- 
trophe, owing  to  this  restriction  of  power  and 
responsibility  to  a  group  of  moderate  talent,  does 
not  shake  their  tradition.  We  shall,  when  this  war 


POLITICAL  SHAMS  97 

is  over,  see  them  resist  reform  as  energetically  as 
ever. 

Within  the  House  of  Commons  itself  a  mass  of 
old  rules  and  customs  are  maintained  for  the  same 
purpose.  The  hours  of  work  are  still  arranged  on 
the  old  supposition,  that  a  Member  of  Parliament 
is  a  man  who,  with  great  self-sacrifice,  devotes  a 
large  part  of  his  time  gratuitously  to  the  service  of 
his  country.  The  most  important  work  in  the 
nation's  economy  is  relegated  to  the  hours  when 
every  healthy  man  is  disposed  to  rest  and  recreate 
himself :  indeed,  the  more  important  the  issue  at 
stake,  the  more  certain  it  is  to  be  discussed  during 
the  worst  working  hours  out  of  the  twenty-four. 
One  has  only  to  glance  at  our  legislators  on  their 
benches  after  dinner  to  realise  the  significance  of 
it.  The  majority  of  them  are  plainly  reconciled  to 
the  theory  that  the  heads  of  the  party  have  done 
the  necessary  work  during  the  day  :  their  business 
is  to  keep  sufficiently  awake  to  vote  correctly. 

The  arrangement  of  business  is  not  less  iniquitous. 
The  Ministry  decides  that  certain  measures  of  reform 
are  needed,  either  in  the  interest  of  the  people  or 
in  their  own  interest,  and,  since  they  have  an 
assured  majority  of  "  Ayes,"  the  lengthy  debate  is 
almost  superfluous.  The  passing  of  the  measure 
has  been  secured  in  advance,  or  it  would  not  be  put 
forward.  The  rare  event  of  miscalculation,  and  the 
still  rarer  event  of  independent  action,  need  not  be 
regarded.  No  Member  is,  even  in  these  cases, 
influenced  by  the  long  and  tiring  speeches  which 
8 


98  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

are  made  about  the  matter.  At  one  time  the 
debates  had  a  certain  elocutionary  elegance,  at 
least ;  now  they  represent  an  unattractive  sham- 
fight,  and  abuse  is  being  increasingly  substituted 
for  rhetoric.  The  most  paltry  trickery  is  employed 
on  both  sides,  because  every  man  is  aware  that  his 
speech  is  really  addressed  to  his  followers  outside 
the  House,  and  he  must,  in  the  House,  rely  on  quite 
other  devices  than  eloquence.  Yet  all  this  pseudo- 
gravity  is  lightened  occasionally  by  sittings  in 
which  some  measure  of  the  greatest  importance, 
but  not  introduced  by  the  Government,  is  treated 
as  flippantly  as  it  would  be  in  a  humorous  debate 
during  a  long  sea-voyage. 

If  a  man  is  instructed  by  his  constituents  to 
represent  in  the  House  some  special  need  of  theirs, 
or  some  public  reform  which  has  millions  to  support 
it,  he  finds  that  "  the  rules  of  the  House,"  or  the 
rules  of  the  oligarchy,  will  not  allow  him  to  introduce 
it.  A  very  small  fraction  of  the  time  of  the  House 
is  granted  for  the  discussion  of  such  proposals  ; 
but  the  debate  is  farcical,  and  is  often  looked  forward 
to  in  advance  as  such,  because  everybody  knows 
what  will  be  the  issue,  even  if  a  majority  of  the 
House  really  favours  the  proposal.  Measures  of 
grave  social  importance,  like  women-suffrage,  have 
been  arbitrarily  crushed  by  the  oligarchs  for  thirty 
years, — as  early  as  1886  women-suffrage  had  343 
supporters  on  the  benches, — and  this  tyranny  and 
injustice  of  a  few  ministers  have  led  to  the  most 
violent  and  bitter  recrimination. 


POLITICAL  SHAMS  99 

This  is  the  political  machinery  to  which  we  entrust 
the  most  delicate  and  momentous  issues  of  our 
national  life,  and  to  which  we  have  to  look  for  the 
realisation  of  our  most  treasured  hopes  of  reform. 
The  impartial  critic  will  not  question  that  there 
are  men  in  the  political  world  as  eager  for  reform 
as  he,  or  that  during  the  last  half-century  some 
excellent  social  legislation  has  been  passed.  These 
measures  are,  however,  due  in  great  part  to  a  studied 
endeavour  to  retain  or  gain  support  in  the  country, 
—the  Insurance  Act,  for  instance, — and  many  of 
them — relating  to  the  sale  of  cigarettes,  to  the 
admission  of  children  into  public-houses,  to  the 
flogging  of  procurers — are  small  sentimental  reforms 
which  occupy  time  that  could  be  better  employed. 
We  think  that  we  open  a  new  epoch  of  civilisation 
when  we  give  a  very  small  pension  to  a  very  aged 
worker,  but  the  problem  of  the  roots  of  poverty  or 
the  abolition  of  warfare  does  not  enter  the  party- 
programme.  Our  bishops  enthuse  over  their  success 
in  inducing  a  complaisant  Home  Secretary  to  lay 
the  lash  on  the  backs  of  a  sordid  little  group  of 
criminals,  and  even  offer  to  roll  up  their  own  lawn 
sleeves  for  the  job  ;  but  they  are  indifferent,  or 
hostile,  when  other  people  would  induce  our  Ministers 
to  amend  those  brutalities  of  our  marriage-laws 
which  tend  to  foster  prostitution. 

This  political  machine  must  be  radically  and 
comprehensively  reformed  before  it  can  be  a  fit 
instrument  for  the  reform  of  the  nation.  All  the 
pyrotechnic  distractions  and  gross  irregularities  of 


ioo  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

an  election  must  be  suppressed  :  all  plural  voting 
must  be  abolished  :  the  comedy  of  cars  for  feeble 
voters  must  be  forbidden  :  all  indirect  bribery, 
either  of  voters  or  candidates,  must  be  rigorously 
punished.  Candidates  must  put  a  simple  and  sober 
statement  of  their  views  and  proposals  before  the 
electorate,  and  no  further  expense  should  be  per- 
mitted. Some  system  of  proportional  representa- 
tion and  secondary  elections  should  ensure  that 
large  minorities  would  not  be  entirely  without 
representation.  The  election  should  be  confined 
to  one  day,  preferably  a  Sunday,  and  stripped  of  all 
melodramatic  nonsense  and  occasion  for  corruption. 

The  party-system  will,  no  doubt,  long  survive  in 
English  political  life.  Within  twenty  years  or  so 
the  word  "  Conservative  "  will,  as  in  other  countries, 
pass  out  of  use,  and  the  Conservative  elements  will 
unite  under  the  banner  of  "  Liberalism,"  in  opposi- 
tion to  "  Labour."  It  is,  of  course,  the  dread  of 
this  issue  which  at  present  unites  the  constitutional 
parties  in  opposing  reform.  One  can,  by  studying 
advancing  countries,  even  foresee  a  next  phase. 
The  Conservative  elements  will  unite  in  a  "  Labour  " 
party  against  the  Socialists  ;  and  in  the  dim  future 
we  may,  like  Anatole  France,  foresee  a  Socialist 
commonwealth  established  and  an  Anarchist  party 
furiously  assailing  it. 

But,  though  the  party-system  be  retained  (very 
much  modified  by  proportional  representation), 
this  disgusting  sale  of  honours  and  offices,  this 
oligarchic  tyranny  over  the  House  and  the  con- 


POLITICAL  SHAMS  101 

stituencies,  will  not  survive.  Reform  of  the  elec- 
toral procedure  will  enable  a  large  group  of  in- 
dependent men — independent  of  the  large  parties — 
to  enter  Parliament,  and  the  removal  of  the  Irish 
and  other  Members,  who  concentrate  on  a  single 
issue  and  are  willing  to  traffic  on  other  issues,  will 
reduce  the  old  majorities.  I  do  not  doubt  that 
fresh  complications  will  arise.  The  weakness  of 
proportional  representation  is  that  it  will  certainly 
lead  to  a  number  of  sectarian  groups.  "  We 
Catholics  "  will,  of  course,  return  Catholic  Members, 
ready  to  sell  their  votes  on  various  issues  in  the 
interest  of  the  sect ;  and  the  Baptists  and  Methodists, 
and  so  on,  will  be  tempted  to  retort.  We  shall 
have  a  teetotal  group,  and  a  Puritan  group,  and  an 
anti-wallpaper  group,  etc.  We  must  hope  that 
the  sterner  education  of  the  electorate  will  secure 
that  these  trivialities  do  not  endanger  grave  national 
interests.  The  dissolution  of  the  old  Conservative 
party  will  leave  the  Liberal  party  unable  to  defend 
its  abuses ;  it  will  have  no  opportunity  of  collusion 
or  retaliation.  So  we  may  have  in  time  a  political 
machine — a  body  of  men,  appointing  their  own 
leaders,  soberly  chosen  by  each  100,000  of  the 
population,  regarding  Parliament  as  a  grave  national 
council,  not  a  theatre  for  the  display  of  wit  and 
rhetoric — which  will  effectively  carry  out  the  will 
of  an  advancing  people  and  enlist  the  interest  of  the 
most  thoughtful. 

I  am  in  all  this  assuming  that  sex-barriers  and 
privileges  will  be  entirely  abolished,  but  I  prefer 


102  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

to  discuss  the  position  of  woman  in  its  entirety  in  a 
later  chapter.  It  must  be  explained,  however,  that 
in  taking  100,000  as  a  unit  of  representation,  I  am 
contemplating  an  electorate  of  thirteen  or  fourteen 
million  voters.  Something  between  a  hundred  and 
two  hundred  Members  of  Parliament  are  surely 
sufficient,  and  would  make  a  much  more  practical 
and  alert  body  than  our  present  stuffy,  sleepy,  and 
overcrowded  House. 

It  seems  very  doubtful  if  a  Second  Chamber,  in 
any  form,  is  a  real  social  need.  A  House  of  "  Lords  " 
is,  of  course,  an  insufferable  anomaly  and  medieval 
survival.  It  is  amazing  that  this  hereditary  trans- 
mission of  titles — and  such  titles  ! — and  wealth  has 
so  long  survived  the  stinging  raillery  that  men  like 
Thackeray  poured  on  it  long  ago  :  it  is  still  more 
amazing  when  we  measure  the  intelligence  and 
public  spirit  of  our  "  lords."  Even  if  we  weed  out 
the  less  intelligent,  or  those  whose  interest  in  horses 
or  actresses  or  theology  is  more  conspicuous  than 
their  interest  in  the  nation's  affairs,  it  is  preposterous 
that  such  a  body  should  retain  the  least  control  of 
a  properly  elected  House  of  Commons.  We  may 
trust  that  before  many  decades  all  hereditary  titles 
will  be  abolished,  and  this  will  demolish  at  once  the 
name  and  the  more  offensive  part  of  the  character 
of  the  Second  House.  The  idea  that  because  one 
had  a  distinguished  or  fortunate  or  unscrupulous 
ancestor,  or  one  has  large  estates  or  an  American 
wife,  one  is  fitted  to  control  our  legislators,  is  too 
ludicrous  for  discussion.  It  is  sometimes  pleaded 


POLITICAL  SHAMS  103 

that  they  "  have  a  large  stake  in  the  country." 
One  may  surely  reply,  not  only  that  they  would  do 
well  to  have  their  large  stake  more  ably  represented, 
but  that  poverty  has  an  even  greater  and  more 
pressing  right  to  representation. 

As  to  the  bishops,  it  is  still  more  difficult  to 
discover  why  they  are  allowed  to  control  secular 
legislation.  They  have  been  chosen  for  certain 
doctrinal  and  administrative  functions,  partly  be- 
cause of  their  ability  to  discharge  those  functions, 
partly  because  they  had  a  convenient  income,  and 
partly  because  they  could  command  political  or 
domestic  influence.  But  even  the  men  who  have 
earned  a  mitre  because  they  were  admirably  fitted 
to  wear  it,  and  could  hold  together  a  large  group  of 
clergy  with  conflicting  doctrinal  ideas,  are  not 
obviously  qualified  for  the  work  of  legislation. 
Their  record  in  the  legislative  assembly  is  deplor- 
able. They  have  for  ages  blessed  our  militarist 
and  bellicose  traditions.  They  have,  in  their  own 
interest,  resisted  nearly  every  important  social 
reform  until  recent  years,  and  even  now  they  dis- 
play a  keen  social  sense  only  when  there  is  question 
of  flogging  a  few  score  of  perverts,  or  something  of 
that  kind.  They  have  no  place  in  a  modern  political 
system,  and  their  presence  in  it  is  an  anachronistic 
reminder  of  the  time  when  they  monopolised  educa- 
tion. 

Another  element  of  our  Second  Chamber  consists 
of  men  who  have  been  promoted  from  the  First 
Chamber,  generally  in  order  to  watch  the  interest 


104  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

of  their  party,  or  made  peers  for  public  service  or 
service  to  the  party.  The  various  creatures  of  the 
party  are  one  of  the  abuses  we  have  to  correct. 
Even  the  others  are  of  questionable  value.  Is  Lord 
Morley  more  judicious,  or  more  alive  to  the  highest 
interests  of  the  nation  and  the  race,  than  the  Right 
Honourable  John  Morley  was  ?  Does  age  give 
wisdom  to  Lord  Gladstone,  or  did  it  enhance  that  of 
Lord  Roberts  ?  Is  it  not  a  fact  that  nine  men  out 
of  ten  adopt  a  sluggish  and  reluctant  attitude  in 
age,  and  are  unfitted  to  deal  with  the  proposals  of 
middle-aged  men  ?  There  is,  at  all  events,  occasion 
for  very  careful  discrimination,  whereas  our  present 
practice  is  to  reward,  indiscriminately,  a  supposed 
merit  or  a  service  rendered  to  the  party  with  a  seat 
in  the  "  Upper"  House. 

The  third  class  of  peers  calls  for  the  same  observa- 
tion. Success  in  manufacture  or  finance  or  law,  or 
a  willingness  to  give  large  sums  to  the  party-funds, 
is  not  an  obvious  qualification  for  controlling 
legislation.  While  these  men  are  in  the  prime  of 
their  vigour  and  judgment  the  nation  dispenses 
entirely  with  their  services.  We  invite  their  co- 
operation in  the  national  business  when  they  are 
understood  to  be  too  old  and  inelastic  to  attend 
any  longer  to  their  less  important  commercial 
concerns.  It  is,  in  fact,  impossible  to  frame  a  really 
impressive  plea  for  a  Second  Chamber  of  any  descrip- 
tion. I  venture  to  say  that  if  an  historical  inquiry 
were  made  into  the  services  rendered  by  Second 
Chambers  since  the  beginning  of  the  parliamentary 


POLITICAL  SHAMS  105 

system,  it  would  be  found  that  they  have  rendered 
little  or  no  real  service,  while  they  have  obstructed 
the  work  of  reform  in  every  land.  Their  record — 
the  first  thing  we  ought  to  consult — condemns  them 
emphatically.  If  the  Members  of  a  Second  Chamber 
are  not  elected  by  the  people,  they  invariably 
consult  class-interests :  if  they  are  elected,  they, 
as  one  sees  in  Australia,  are  superfluous. 

This  political  system  is  completed  by  the  royal 
assent  to  Bills  and  the  royal  power  to  choose 
Ministers.  The  former  is  now  an  idle  form  :  the 
latter  is  an  intolerable  abuse.  If  the  people  are 
self -governed,  the  leading  agents  in  the  Govern- 
ment are  Ministers  of  the  people,  not  of  the  king. 
The  Members  of  Parliament  ought  to  choose  the 
Ministers.  Kingship  is  a  medieval  survival,  and  it 
is  inconsistent  with  a  clear  and  practical  conception 
of  the  nation's  business  to  retain  these  archaic 
forms  and  institutions.  The  trend  of  political 
evolution  is  visibly  from  kingdoms  to  republics. 
A  "  monarch  "  in  the  twentieth  century  is  as 
anachronistic  as  a  "  lord  "  ;  an  hereditary  monarch 
is  an  outrage  of  modern  sentiments.  Once  more, 
we  need  to  test  the  institution  by  its  historical 
merits  or  demerits. 

Many  people  seem  to  regard  our  Constitution  much 
as  certain  lowly  tribes  regard  the  mysterious  stone 
which  has  dropped  from  heaven  amongst  them. 
Some  even  of  our  politicians  display  a  kind  of 
fetishistic  terror  if  a  measure  is  projected  that  seems 
to  them  to  infringe  or  enlarge  our  Constitution. 


io6  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

They  brandish  their  spears  before  the  idol  and 
talk  of  shedding  their  blood  in  its  defence.  They 
are  at  times  "  Balliol  Scholars,"  or  something  of 
that  kind,  yet  one  would  suppose  that  they  were 
quite  unaware  how  our  Constitution  arose,  and  what 
plain  and  indisputable  right  we  have  to  revise  and 
improve  it.  It  is  a  sort  of  ancient  mansion  to 
which  a  modern  owner  has  added  billiard-rooms  and 
workshops  and  a  garage.  But  it  has  assuredly 
not  the  aesthetic  charm  of  a  medieval  building, 
and  this  age  of  ours  needs  to  reconsider,  if  not  re- 
construct, it.  It  will  be  a  fine  day  for  England  when 
we  have  a  Royal  Commission  sitting  in  judgment  on 
our  Constitution  :  calmly  discussing,  amongst  other 
matters,  the  expediency  of  asking  the  throne  to  retire 
on  half -pay,  and  all  its  parasites  to  retire  on  no  pay. 
I  have  already  described  fhe  changes  which  are 
likely  to  occur  in  that  large  political  structure,  the 
Empire.  The  various  regions  of  the  earth  which 
constitute  it  cling  together  on  the  understanding 
that  we  are  quite  insincere  when  we  talk  of  them 
as  our  "  possessions."  It  is  a  federation  of  free 
nations,  bound  together  by  thinning  ties  of  blood 
and  by  the  advantage  of  a  collective  defence. 
When  the  military  system  is  abandoned  there  will 
merely  be  a  somewhat  faded  and  amiable  sentiment 
uniting  the  imperial  fiagmerits  to  each  other  more 
closely  than  to  their  nearer  neighbours.  One  may 
hope  that  they  will  remain  united,  for  a  large 
empire  is  a  good  thing,  if  it  has  large  ideals  :  it  is  a 
university  of  civilisation.  But  unless  we  purge  our 


POLITICAL  SHAMS  107 

correspondence  of  archaic  forms  the  "  Colonies  " 
may  grow  impatient.  The  Colonial  of  the  third 
generation,  and  often  of  the  second,  has  very  little 
respect  for  England.  Candid  Australians  would 
make  some  of  our  Imperialists  tremble  with  concern. 
Our  colonial  "  governors,"  of  course,  report  that 
loyalty  is  undiminished,  because  a  few  hundred 
families  in  Melbourne  and  Sydney  press  with  un- 
diminished snobbishness  to  their  garden-parties. 
These  ornamental  nonentities  ought  to  be  with- 
drawn. Perfect  sincerity  in  our  relations  with  the 
Colonies  will  do  most  to  maintain  the  federation. 
The  splendid  co-operation  of  Australia  and  Canada 
in  the  war  has  shown  that  we  have  little  to  fear. 

India  and  Egypt  form  a  special  problem,  com- 
plicated by  the  fact  that,  in  their  condition  of  de- 
pendence, they  are  large  and  nutritious  fields  for 
the  employment  of  our  sons.  It  would,  however, 
be  foolish  to  ignore  the  great  change  that  is  taking 
place  in  them.  Hindus  tell  me  that,  when  Lord 
Morley  became  Secretary  of  State,  the  advanced 
Nationalists  sent  him  a  private  message  to  the  effect 
that  they  would  co-operate  with  a  humanitarian 
like  him ;  and  he  snubbed  them.  A  very  large 
proportion  of  them  are  beyond  the  stage  of  being 
impressed  by  durbars,  and  are  impatient  that  the 
masses  should  be  kept  in  that  childlike  state  of 
mind.  We  set  up  a  fictitious  "  Oriental  imagina- 
tion," and  try  to  make  the  Onentals  live  down  to  it. 
The  example  of  China  and  Japan  ought  to  have 
destroyed  our  illusions  about  "  the  East."  The 


io8  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

difference  is  one  of  culture,  wjiich  may  at  any  time 
be  changed.  We  shall  have  to  deal  more  frankly 
and  generously  with  Egypt  and  India,  or  else  cease 
to  rail  at  Prussian  or  Russian  despotism. 

However,  Imperialism  is  not  a  grave  or  pressing 
problem.  The  Empire  will  run  its  destined  evolu- 
tionary course.  For  us  the  grave  matter  is  the 
corruption  which  clogs  our  political  machine  and 
the  perverse  tradition  which  prevents  the  multi- 
tude from  seeing  it.  The  awarding  of  honours  and 
lucrative  positions  should  be  withdrawn  entirely 
from  politicians,  because,  even  if  we  compelled  them 
to  publish  accounts,  they  would  still  add  to  their 
resources  or  prestige  by  this  inveterate  traffic. 
The  king  might  at  least  render  us  the  service  of 
purifying  this  department  of  national  life  :  perhaps 
have  a  list  prepared  by  the  Privy  Council  and  checked 
by  independent  inquiry.  I  remember  how  Sir 
Leslie  Stephen  told  me  that  he  shrank  from  being 
added  to  the  inglorious  list  of  mayors  who  had 
entertained  princes  or  coal-owners  who  had  financed 
elections  or  built  chapels.  This  would  cut  one  of 
the  chief  roots  of  our  present  political  corruption, 
but  we  need  to  press  for  a  thorough  education  of  the 
people.  It  must  realise  that  the  political  machine 
is  dangerously  clogged  and  sluggish  :  that  its 
"  democratic  "  character  is  a  sham  :  and  that  its 
energy  is  wasted  on  measures  which  are  insignificant 
in  comparison  with  the  mighty  tasks  of  education, 
pacification,  and  industrial  organisation  which  it 
ought  to  undertake. 


CHAPTER   V 

THE    DISTRIBUTION   OF   WEALTH 

IN  the  last  sentence  of  the  last  chapter  I  spoke  of 
education,  pacification,  and  industrial  organisation 
as  the  three  monumental  tasks  of  a  reformed 
political  system.  If  the  supreme  object  of  a  central 
administration — the  sooner  we  cease  to  talk  of 
"  government  "  the  better — is  to  make  a  people 
healthy,  prosperous,  and  happy,  these  are  surely 
the  three  reforms  to  which  it  will  most  resolutely 
apply  itself.  I  have  spoken  of  the  very  grave  and 
pressing  nature  of  one  of  these  reforms  :  the  need 
to  abolish  militarism  and  war.  Later  chapters 
will  deal  with  education,  in  the  very  broad  and  rich 
meaning  which  I  assign  to  the  word.  Here  I  would 
sketch  the  problem  which  seems  to  me  to  weigh 
heavily  on  us  in  connection  with  the  distribu- 
tion of  wealth  and  the  present  disorganisation  of 
industry. 

It  is  useful  sometimes  to  imagine  ourselves  in  the 
year  3000  or  so  looking  back  with  critical  eye  on 
the  twentieth  century.  One  pictures  the  future 
historian — some  narrowly  specialised  expert  on  the 
social  life  of  the  second  decade  of  the  twentieth 

X09 


no  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

century — discoursing  on  us.  A  strange  and  inter- 
esting people,  he  will  say.  They  boasted  of  their 
intelligence,  and  they  really  did  display  a  creditable 
measure  of  intelligence  in  their  research  and  their 
applied  science.  They  regarded  themselves  as  far 
superior  in  humane  sentiment  to  the  Middle  Ages, 
to  which  they  properly  belong,  and  they  put  forward 
many  excellent  vague  proposals  of  social  improve- 
ment. Yet  it  is  not  easy  to  understand  their 
slavery  to  ancient  prejudices,  sometimes  of  a  quite 
barbaric  character.  A  superficial  observer  would 
say  that  the  contradiction  was  due  to  their  unhappy 
practice  of  leaving  the  majority  of  the  community 
at  a  low  level  of  culture,  so  that  the  intelligent 
minority  were  checked  by  a  slower-minded  majority. 
But  it  is  a  singular  fact  that  some  of  the  most 
intelligent  men  among  the  minority,  such  as  Mr.  A. 
Balfour  and  Mr.  F.  E.  Smith,  held  much  the  same 
views  as  the  agricultural  workers,  and  made  a  kind 
of  religion,  which  they  called  Conservatism,  of  this 
obstinate  retention  of  old  traditions.  They  seem, 
with  all  their  pride  in  their  culture,  to  have  mis- 
taken their  place  in  the  evolution  of  the  race.  No 
people  is  entitled  to  be  called  civilised  which  com- 
placently tolerates  war,  squalid  and  widespread 
poverty,  dense  areas  of  ignorance,  political  corrup- 
tion, and  the  many  other  remnants  of  barbarism 
which  they  tolerated.  The  twentieth  century  was 
the  last  hour  of  barbarism,  lit  by  a  few  rays  of  the 
civilisation  which  dawned  in  the  twenty-first  century. 
If  the  infliction  of  pain  and  misery  is,  as  I  believe, 


THE  DISTRIBUTION  OF  WEALTH    in 

the  worst  form  of  crime,  this  retention  of  war  and 
poverty  is  the  gravest  of  our  social  transgressions. 
But  the  guilt  of  our  generation  in  regard  to  these 
two  crimes  is  very  unequal.  The  way  to  abolish 
war  is  clear,  but  the  remedy  of  this  other  open  sore 
of  our  social  organism,  a  poverty  which  stunts  and 
embitters  the  lives  of  millions  in  every  large  civilisa- 
tion, is  not  at  all  clear.  The  plain  man  who, 
oppressed  by  the  spectacle  of  this  desolating,  un- 
changing poverty,  seeks  a  remedy  in  social  literature, 
is  at  once  beset  by  a  dozen  rival  theorists.  The 
Socialist,  the  Anarchist,  the  Eugenist,  the  Mal- 
thusian,  the  Single  -  Taxer,  and  other  austere 
thinkers  press  on  him  their  contradictory  formulae 
and  their  mutual  abuse  ;  these  in  turn  are  assailed 
contemptuously  by  men  who  are  not  less  acquainted 
with  economic  matters  ;  and  the  older  political 
parties  observe,  with  a  sigh,  that  poverty  seems 
to  be  an  inherent  evil  of  every  industrial  order,  and 
we  can  do  no  more  than  mitigate  its  hardships. 
To  this  last  position  the  plain  man  usually  comes. 

Let  us  grant  at  once  that  the  older  political 
parties  have  done  much  toward  the  alleviation  of 
poverty.  No  one  who  is  acquainted  with  the  con- 
dition of  the  workers  a  hundred  years  ago  can 
hesitate  to  admit  this.  Impatience  is  too  rare 
a  virtue,  it  is  true,  but  this  does  not  dispense  us 
from  cultivating  wisdom.  A  great  deal  has  been 
won,  and  generally  won  by  the  middle  class,  for  the 
oppressed  workers.  Between  1830  and  1880,  at 
least,  thousands  of  middle-class  men  were  working 


H2  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

in  Europe  for  the  advance  and  enlightenment  of 
the  workers.  The  old  doctrine  of  laissez-faire  has 
been  forced  to  compromise  with  decency.  We  have 
entirely  abolished  the  horrible  exploitation  of  cheap 
child-labour  which  was  common  early  in  the  nine- 
teenth century.  Our  Francis  Places  and  Robert 
Owens  have  won  for  the  worker  the  right  to  form 
Trade  Unions,  and  others  the  free  education  of  his 
children.  We  no  longer  permit  the  employer  to 
fix  the  conditions  and  hours  of  labour  as  he  wills. 
The  cotton-worker  of  Manchester,  labouring  twelve 
or  fourteen  hours  a  day,  and  living  in  a  squalid 
cellar,  one  hundred  years  ago,  would  be  amazed  if 
he  could  visit  the  factories  and  homes  and  places 
of  amusement  of  his  grandchildren.  Even  the 
poorer  workers  are  no  longer  left  to  God  and  the 
clergy  ;  while  the  bulk  of  the  workers  have  numbers 
of  cheap  luxuries  which  would  have  seemed  an 
apocalyptic  dream  to  the  worker  of  Napoleon's 
day. 

But  let  us  not  imagine  that  we  have  got  our  axe 
into  the  roots  of  poverty  and  are  in  a  fair  way  to 
abolish  it.  This  is  one  of  the  most  dangerous 
fallacies  of  our  age ;  and  against  that  comfortable 
assurance  I,  knowing  well  all  that  has  been  done, 
plead  that  not  one  of  our  reforms  makes  for  the 
abolition  or  the  material  restriction  of  poverty. 
We  pension  the  very  aged  worker  and  the  still  more 
aged  widow :  on  the  pauper  scale.  We  build 
substantial,  if  rather  cheerless,  homes  for  the 
destitute,  and  we  put  warm,  if  ignominious,  clothing 


THE  DISTRIBUTION  OF  WEALTH     113 

on  the  back  of  the  orphan.  We  appoint  minimum 
wages,  and  permit  maximum  prices.  We  have 
labour  bureaux,  and  district  visitors,  and  a  Salva- 
tion Army,  and  a  Church  Army.  All  of  which 
means  that  we  give  a  drink  to  the  crucified  ;  it 
might  be  well  to  study  if  we  can  cease  to  crucify. 

The  plain  man  or  woman  who  earnestly  wishes 
to  help  in  the  improvement  of  life  will  inquire  first, 
and  most  resolutely,  what  the  actual  range  and 
depth  of  poverty  are  ;  will  study,  secondly,  how 
far  our  measures  of  reform  afford  us  any  hope  of 
curtailing  it ;  and  will,  in  the  third  place,  ask  whether 
there  is  any  other  way  of  action  which  does  offer 
some  hope  of  restricting,  if  not  removing,  the  evil. 

In  the  mind  of  many  people  poverty  means  that 
somewhere  in  the  darker  depths  of  our  cities,  happily 
remote  from  the  shopping  centres,  there  are  a  number 
of  people  who,  from  lack  of  skill  or  excess  of  drink, 
cannot  find  regular  employment,  and  must  live.  .  .  . 
One  does  not  know  exactly  how  they  live,  but 
certainly  on  unpleasantly  short  and  dry  rations. 
In  earlier  times  one  dropped  a  half-sovereign  into 
the  poor-box  at  church  for  these  creatures,  if  they 
would  come  to  church  and  learn  resignation.  To- 
day one  subscribes  to  the  Charity  Organisation 
Society  or  the  Salvation  Army,  or  joins  one  of  the 
many  enterprising  associations  which  are  going 
to  make  the  poor  richer  without  making  the  rich 
poorer.  We  have  a  social  conscience.  We  believe 
in  laissez-faire,  but,  being  humane,  we  will  not  push 
it  to  extremes.  At  the  same  time,  being  sensible 
9 


H4  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

men,  we  are  not  going  to  push  humanitarianism 
to  extremes.  The  phrase-maker  is  the  great  bene- 
factor. 

For  a  first  acquaintance  with  poverty  I  would 
recommend  a  man  to  spend  a  few  hours,  some 
Saturday  evening,  among  those  markets  of  the  poor 
which  still  line  many  of  our  more  dingy  thorough- 
fares. As  the  night  draws  on,  and  the  oil-lamps 
begin  to  flare  and  splutter  over  the  stalls,  the  grim 
courts  and  narrow  streets  of  the  district  discharge 
their  grey  streams  of  life  upon  the  market.  There 
is  plenty  of  laughter,  you  observe ;  there  are 
plenty  of  round-faced  matrons,  with  clean,  honest 
eyes  and  comfortable  dress.  "  We  ain't  got  much 
money,  but  we  do  live,"  I  heard  one  of  them  re- 
mark, in  an  interval  between  bursts  of  raillery. 
The  wives  of  regularly  employed,  and  often  not  ill- 
paid,  workers  are  there,  as  well  as  poorer  folk.  But 
study  some  of  the  quieter  figures  which  move 
slowly  among  the  throng  or  linger  enviously  before 
the  cheap  shops.  Notice  the  puny,  shrivelled  in- 
fants, with  quaint  staring  eyes,  which,  at  the  door 
of  the  public-house,  lie  lightly  in  the  arms  of 
women  whose  faces  are  bloated  with  drink  and 
coarse  food  :  the  lean  and  ragged  boys  and  girls, 
with  hollow  and  prematurely  sharpened  eyes,  who 
hang  about  the  fruit-stalls,  ready  to  dart  upon  the 
rotten  castaways,  or  foster,  in  darker  spots,  the 
premature  sex-development  which  will  drain  their 
scanty  strength  :  the  woman  who,  with  drawn 
face,  waits  near  the  Red  Lion  to  see  how  many 


THE  DISTRIBUTION  OF  WEALTH     115 

shillings  her  sodden  brute  of  a  husband  will  at  length 
hand  her  for  a  week's  shopping  :  the  weary  old 
couple  who  have  seen  better  days,  and  now  pass  in 
silence  through  the  babel  of  vulgarity  :  the  haggard- 
faced  widow  in  mouldy  black  who  hides  her  paltry 
Sunday  dinner  in  a  worn  bag  :  the  eager  eyes  of  the 
poorer  hawkers,  which  light  up  pathetically  when 
a  penny  comes  their  way  :  the  men  whose  faces 
change  at  a  drunken  jibe  into  such  faces  as  we  have 
seen  behind  the  bars  of  a  cage  in  a  zoological  garden, 
and  the  crowd  of  men,  women,  and  children  rushing 
to  enjoy  the  gratuitous  spectacle  of  a  fight :  the 
cheap,  middle-aged  prostitute,  whose  features  are  a 
caricature  of  the  features  of  woman. 

You  may  see  these  things  in  all  parts  of  London 
— north,  south,  east,  and  west — every  Saturday 
evening,  and  many  other  evenings,  all  the  year 
round.  You  may  see  them  in  all  the  other  large 
towns  and  cities  of  Britain,  and  the  cities  of  France 
and  Germany  and  the  United  States  and  all  other 
"  great  civilisations."  I  have  studied  them  on 
Saturday  nights  in  half  the  cities  of  Britain  :  in 
Amsterdam  and  Brussels  and  Cologne,  in  Paris  and 
Nice,  in  Venice  and  Rome  and  Naples,  in  New  York 
and  Chicago  :  and  in  the  light  of  our  historical 
research  one  sees  their  ancestors  in  all  the  great 
cities  of  all  the  great  civilisations  that  ever  were. 
As  it  was  in  the  beginning  .  .  .  But  that  refers  to 
the  glory  of  God. 

Follow  to  their  homes  these  more  pathetic  figures 
of  a  London  crowd.     You  need  not  do  so  literally, 


n6  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

for  more  observant  and  sympathetic  visitors  have 
been  there  before  you,  and  they  told  London  long 
ago,  as  far  as  London  was  willing  to  hear,  how  the 
majority  of  its  citizens  live.  Mr.  Booth's  book, 
Life  and  Labour  in  London,  had  better  be  suppressed 
when  its  work  is  done,  lest  the  men  and  women  of  a 
more  humane  age  learn  too  much  about  us  ;  also 
Mr.  Rowntree's  book,  which  shows  this  same  fetid 
poverty  lying  at  the  feet  of  a  superb  minster,  the 
symbol  of  ages  of  ecclesiastical  wealth  and  power  ; 
and  many  other  books.  Let  me  summarise  the 
relevant  record  of  the  natural  history  of  London. 

We  may  begin  with  the  lowest  depth,  with  life 
as  it  is  lived  in  some  of  the  streets  which  still  linger 
about  Covent  Garden,  and  in  east  and  west  and 
south.  We  are  beginning  to  see  the  grim  humour 
of  tolerating  the  existence  of  these  hotbeds  of 
corruption  under  the  very  shadow  of  our  marble 
palaces  of  justice  and  our  marble  hotels  for  million- 
aires, and  we  are  destroying  them ;  but  the  life 
remains  still  in  sufficient  quantity  to  fill  a  large  town. 
In  tenements  of  this  order  fifteen  rooms  out  of 
twenty  are  indescribably  filthy.  Legions  of  bugs 
lurk  by  day  behind  the  faded  rags  of  ancient  wall- 
paper or  in  the  crevices  of  the  unwashed  floor,  or 
even  venture  forth  as  securely  as  if  they  were 
conscious  of  free  citizenship  in  these  places.  The 
"  windows  "  are  a  rough  mosaic  of  dirty  glass  and 
roughly  plastered  paper.  The  ceiling  is  pale  black, 
the  floor  filthy.  A  table,  one  or  two  dilapidated 
chairs,  a  kind  of  bed — the  "  landlord  "  would,  in 


U7 

most  cases,  not  raise  two  shillings  on  the  lot — and 
an  entire  family  of  ragged,  vermin-eaten  human 
beings  fill  this  foul  box,  which  is  often  only  eight 
or  ten  feet  square. 

These  people  are  thieves,  cheap  prostitutes, 
hawkers,  porters,  charwomen,  flower-sellers,  rag- 
men— the  most  pitiful  of  the  irregulars  which  we 
suffer,  age  after  age,  to  live  and  breed  and  die 
beyond  the  extreme  fringe  of  our  industrial  army. 
•Sometimes  they  have  nearly  as  much  food  to  eat 
as  a  workhouse-idler  :  generally  not.  Drink — the 
vile  mixtures  of  the  cheaper  public-house — they  have 
more  constantly  ;  and  their  children  are  not  in  their 
teens  before  they  are  familiar  with  all  the  vice  and 
crime  and  brutality  which  seven  out  of  ten  of  these 
rooms  breed  as  naturally  as  they  breed  lice  or  bugs. 
In  winter  the  doors  and  windows  are  sealed,  and 
men,  women,  and  children  huddle  together  or,  at 
times,  crouch  over  a  few  lighted  sticks.  And  year 
by  year,  century  by  century,  babies  are  ushered  into 
this  underworld  in  edifying  abundance,  to  live  its 
ghastly  life  until  the  yellow  frame  and  dull  brain 
are  worn  out. 

Shocking,  you  will  say,  but  happily  rare.  Do 
you  know  that,  according  to  the  best  authorities, 
50,000  men,  women,  and  children  in  London  alone 
live  in  this  atmosphere  of  squalor  and  brutality  and 
chronic  hunger  ? 

Let  us  pass  to  the  next  higher  circle  of  the  modern 
Inferno — the  category  of  casual  or  very  badly  paid 
labour  and  chronic  poverty,  the  makers  of  your 


n8  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

cheap  furniture  and  clothes  and  brushes,  your 
match-boxes  and  chocolate-boxes,  the  hawkers  and 
costers  and  regular  porters  and  dockers.  Now  there 
are  generally  two  rooms  to  each  family,  but  the 
vermin  still  thrive  in  more  than  half  of  them,  and 
the  rooms  are  filthy,  and  the  children  breathe  an 
air  that  is  foul  with  drink  and  cursing  and  the 
most  open  and  gross  sexuality  :  not  now  in  fifteen 
cases  out  of  twenty,  it  is  true,  but  in  ten  cases 
out  of  twenty.  Food  is  habitually  insufficient,  for 
labour  is  uncertain,  and  profit  is  infinitesimal ; 
and,  as  a  man  must  drink,  there  are  constant  dis- 
turbances to  break  the  monotony  and  help  one  to 
forget  the  customary  hunger.  You  may  have  at 
times  noticed  the  dejected  hawker  returning,  on  a 
wet  summer's  day,  with  his  tomatoes  unsold  :  or 
the  children  eager  to  collect  fragments  of  the  lids 
of  orange-boxes  in  the  winter.  Countess  Russell 
told  me  that  she  once  visited,  unexpectedly,  a  group 
of  homes  of  this  class,  within  a  few  minutes'  walk  of 
Gordon  Square,  in  the  depth  of  winter.  Hardly 
any  had  the  material  for  a  fire,  and  few  had  food 
in  the  house.  So  they  live,  year  in,  year  out ;  and 
all  that  we  propose  to  do  is  to  give  them  five  shillings 
a  week  each  if  they  will  sustain  the  burden  honestly 
for  six  decades,  or  house  and  feed  them  in  jail 
if  they  do  not  succeed  in  curbing  their  criminal 
impulses. 

Once,  in  the  Westminster  Court,  I  saw  a  young 
and  humane  judge  hand  certain  tickets  to  the 
jury,  when  they  had  established  the  guilt  of  two 


THE  DISTRIBUTION  OF  WEALTH     119 

petty  criminals  of  this  class.  "  These,  gentlemen," 
he  said,  "  are  permits  to  inspect  the  jail ;  go  some 
day  and  see  the  place  to  which  you  send  criminals." 
A  very  wise  and  benevolent  innovation,  but  we  still 
await  the  judge  who  will  send  the  jury  to  inspect  the 
homes  in  which  these  men  conceive  crime. 

About  400,000  citizens  of  the  greatest  city  in  the 
world  belong  to  this  class.  If  400,000  do  not  con- 
stitute a  sufficiently  important  problem,  let  us  see 
the  homes  of  the  next  category.  These  are  the 
irregularly  employed  and  badly  paid,  though  not 
the  worst  paid,  workers  :  costers,  labourers,  dockers, 
etc.  There  are  about  a  million  of  them  in  London 
alone.  They  know  quite  well  what  hunger  is  :  for 
weeks  together,  sometimes,  the  wage  does  not 
suffice  to  buy  that  minimum  quantity  of  nitrogen 
and  carbon  which  men  of  science  have  declared  to 
be  necessary,  and  the  money  is  ill  expended.  They 
know  what  cold  is,  for  many  a  hard  spell  of  winter 
finds  them  in  want.  They  have  two  or  three  rooms 
to  each  family,  but,  as  a  rule,  not  much  of  that 
"  Christian  reticence  "  on  which  our  clergy  con- 
gratulate us. 

To  the  great  majority  of  these  million  and  a  half 
of  London's  poor,  sexual  pleasure  is  the  one  cheap 
luxury ;  and  we  encourage  them  to  breed  in- 
dustriously. My  wife,  with  other  ladies  and  gentle- 
men, addresses  them  on  the  subject  from  the  tail  of 
a  cart  in  South  London,  and  teaches  the  heavy- 
burdened  mothers  how  to  avoid  having  so  many 
children  ;  and  the  leader  of  this  little  group  was 


120  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

sourly  and  menacingly  (and  quite  falsely)  told  by  a 
distinguished  Churchman,  sitting  in  a  Royal  Com- 
mission, that  they  were  breaking  the  law  of  the 
land.  A  friend  of  mine  has  been  hounded  out  of 
the  United  States  by  the  police  for  attempting  to 
give  similar  information  to  the  poorer  mothers  of 
New  York. 

Even  in  this  third  and  very  large  category  of 
London  homes  there  is  much  filth  ;  and  the  windows, 
across  which  is  drawn  an  odd  cloth  or  a  ragged  and 
dirty  curtain,  abound  in  broken  panes.  They  have 
periods  of  comparative  plenty,  when  the  children 
get  boots  and  socks,  and  their  elders  soak  in  beer 
and  may  even  venture  to  a  cinematograph  show, 
if  the  crude  pictures  on  its  garish  fa9ade  promise 
a  sufficiently  silly  or  sufficiently  bloody  programme. 
All  that  the  police  and  the  clergy  care  about  is  that 
not  more  than  an  inch  or  two  of  underclothing  are 
exhibited  in  these  places.  They  have  also  periods 
of  want,  when  the  clothes  go  to  the  pawnshop,  and 
life  runs  on  the  exasperating,  brutalising  lines  of 
the  lower  class.  The  daily  round  of  life  is  itself 
stupefying.  At  five  or  six  they  are  dragged  out  of 
an  insufficient  sleep,  and  they  dully  take  their  tea 
(of  a  kind)  and  bread  and  margarine  on  a  dirty  table. 
After  ten  or  twelve  hours  of  anxious  quest  of  minute 
profits  they  return  home  for  a  slightly  better  meal 
— a  kipper,  perhaps,  or  a  few  bits  of  cheap  meat — 
too  tired  in  mind  and  body  to  do  more  than  smoke 
and  drink.  They  have  plenty  of  fun,  of  a  sort,  and 
take  their  tragedies  lightly  ;  but  the  angels,  if  there 


THE  DISTRIBUTION  OF  WEALTH      121 

are  any,  must  fold  their  wings  over  their  faces  at 
the  aspect  of  these  fellow-immortals.  Even  a  poli- 
tician might  be  expected  to  blush  for  this  self- 
governing  democracy.  It  is  a  squalid,  degrading, 
stupefying  life,  below  the  level  of  civilisation. 

Nearly  one-third  of  the  citizens  of  London  do  not 
rise  above  this  level.  The  three  classes  that  I  have 
described,  or  the  mass  of  people  who  spread  con- 
tinuously over  these  classes,  were  found  by  Mr. 
Booth  to  number  1,300,000  of  the  four  and  a  half 
million  inhabitants  of  the  city.  The  figure  for  the 
Greater  London  of  to-day  is,  of  course,  immensely 
higher.  "  The  submerged  tenth  is  a  most  un- 
fortunate phrase.  It  leads  many,  who  know  little 
of  these  matters,  to  suppose  that  only  a  tenth  of 
the  inhabitants  of  London  are  very  poor.  The 
truth  is  that  a  tenth  live  in  a  condition  of  misery, 
filth,  and  degradation  of  which  the  ordinary  decent 
citizen  can  form  no  conception.  They  are  the 
shirkers,  the  abnormal,  and  the  worst  casual  workers. 
But  the  life  of  this  further  million — or  nearly  one- 
fourth  of  the  total  inhabitants  of  the  Metropolis — 
the  irregular  or  badly-paid  workers,  is  a  grave  and 
accusing  problem  to  every  man  of  decent  sentiment. 
Their  condition  is  not  consistent  with  civilisation. 
Certainly  large  numbers  of  them  live  clean  and 
cheerful  lives,  but  even  in  these  cases  it  is  scandalous 
that  sober  and  willing  toil  should  receive  wage  enough 
only  to  secure  cleanliness  and  the  necessaries  of  life  ; 
while  a  far  larger  number  sink  under  the  burden,  and 
are  dirty,  intemperate,  gross,  and  improvident. 


122  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

Conceive  the  extension  of  this  class  all  over 
Britain  :  the  further  vast  contingents  of  this  army 
of  poverty  in  the  slums  of  Glasgow  and  Liverpool 
and  Manchester,  in  all  our  great  manufacturing 
and  shipping  towns,  even  in  the  heart  of  pretty 
rural  England,  where  the  wretched  wage  and  low 
standard  and  large  family  stunt  and  degrade  our 
agricultural  worker.  It  is  a  very  serious  error  to 
imagine  that  this  is  merely  an  unhappy  issue  of  the 
crowding  in  our  great  cities.  In  picturesque  and 
highly  respectable  York  Mr.  Rowntree  found  that 
thirty  per  cent,  of  the  citizens  lived  in  very  real 
poverty :  that  ten  per  cent,  did  not  earn  money 
enough  to  buy  a  normal  and  sufficient  quantity  of 
plain  food,  to  say  nothing  of  luxuries. 

This  is  the  problem  of  poverty.  If  you  want  it 
in  figures,  a  fourth  of  the  inhabitants  of  London, 
where  rents  are  appalling,  live  on  from  eighteen 
to  twenty-one  shillings  weekly  per  family,  and  some 
hundreds  of  thousands  live  on  less  than  this.  One 
might  with  some  profit  and  pertinence  go  on  to 
inquire  into  the  life  of  the  half  of  the  population  of 
London  who  are  described  as  "  comfortable  workers." 
Whether  the  little  luxuries  they  have  are  a  fit  reward 
for  the  hard  work  they  usually  do,  whether  there 
can  be  any  development  of  distinctively  human 
powers  among  them,  whether  we  may  cherish  a 
feeling  of  entire  security  in  basing  our  political 
system  on  that  foundation,  are  questions  worth 
putting ;  and  some  day  they  will  put  them  to  us. 
But  it  is  better  for  the  moment  to  confine  ourselves 


123 

to  that  pitiful  fourth  of  the  community  which  lives 
in  degrading  poverty  because  it  has  only  irregular 
or  wretchedly  paid  employment.  Is  it  an  exaggera- 
tion to  suspect  that  this  vast  acreage  of  poverty 
will  make  the  future  historian  hesitate  to  class  us 
as  civilised  ? 

Our  social  structure  is  of  the  nature  of  a  pyramid. 
At  its  apex,  glittering  in  the  sun,  calling  forth  our 
pride  and  praise,  are  culture  and  wealth  and  power, 
and  all  the  fine  things  they  bring  into  existence. 
At  its  base  are  the  supporting  stones,  crushed  into 
the  soil  by  the  towering  mass  :  the  millions  of  stunted 
or  brutalised  lives.  I  know  both  extremes  of  this 
social  order,  and  I  have  felt,  hundreds  of  times, 
that  if  it  is  permanently  to  retain  this  pyramidal 
form,  the  refined  lives  and  great  achievements  of 
the  few  resting  on  this  broad  base  of  squalid  and 
undeveloped  lives,  civilisation  is  an  impossible 
dream.  I  have  felt  that,  if  men  and  women  realised 
the  full  meaning  and  range  of  poverty,  they  would 
suspend  the  progress  of  art  and  science,  of  com- 
merce and  industry,  for  a  hundred  years,  if  need 
were,  in  order  to  concentrate  the  best  intelligence 
of  the  race  upon  the  search  for  the  remedy  of  this 
vast  disorder.  And,  if  it  be  true,  as  I  think,  that 
these  people,  once  dead,  are  dead  for  ever,  and  that 
the  tradition  of  a  hundredfold  reward  in  heaven 
for  their  privations  on  earth  is  an  illusion  with  which 
pastors  and  masters  have  reconciled  them  to  their 
burdens,  I  would,  if  I  could,  send  that  assurance 
like  a  trumpet-blast  through  the  slums  of  the  world 


124  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

and  make  this  vast  army  of  the  stricken  summon 
us,  the  intelligent  minority,  to  a  tardy  judgment. 

I  do  not,  as  will  appear  later,  advocate  the  equal 
distribution  of  wealth.  I  do  assuredly  not  plead 
that  one  who  has  wealth  should  give  it  to  the  poor  : 
to  see  it  gather  again,  perhaps,  in  less  worthy  hands. 
I  add  the  contrast  of  wealth  at  this  point  only  in 
order  to  make  quite  sensible  the  darkness  of  the 
life  of  millions.  One's  first  task  is  to  establish,  with 
what  faint  power  the  pen  has,  the  appalling  magni- 
tude of  the  evil.  If  any  very  large  number  of  us  did 
really  grasp  the  human  significance  of  these  facts 
and  figures,  the  industrial  problem  would  not  long 
be  resigned,  as  it  is,  to  bloodless  economists  and 
obscure  propagandist  bodies. 

And  the  second  aim  of  those  who  would  see  the 
world  bettered  is,  as  I  said,  to  inquire  into  the 
effect  of  the  remedies  we  actually  trust  and  apply. 
Here  we  enter  the  mistier  region  of  controversy,  and 
I  can  but  set  out  the  grounds  of  my  sincere  con- 
victions. 

Of  labour  bureaux,  in  the  first  place,  it  will  not 
be  doubted  that  they  are  an  advantage  to  employed 
and  employers.  They  are  an  advance  toward 
organisation.  They  bring  the  worker  more  promptly 
to  the  work  that  awaits  him.  But  they,  obviously, 
do  not  add  one  iota  to  the  insufficient  work,  for 
which  myriads  are  struggling  :  they  do  not  add 
one  penny  to  the  wage  that  is  earned  :  and  they 
are  of  little  or  no  service  to  the  poorest  workers, 
who  chiefly  concern  us. 


THE  DISTRIBUTION  OF  WEALTH     125 

Old  age  pensions  and  insurance  and  free  educa- 
tion are,  similarly,  great  advantages  to  the  workers, 
in  which  we  may  justly  take  some  pride,  but  they 
do  not  promise  to  abolish  or  greatly  diminish  poverty. 
The  pension,  or  the  insurance  benefit,  is  necessarily 
granted  on  the  poverty  scale,  and  is  in  some  sense 
a  recognition  of  it  as  one  of  the  permanent  institu- 
tions of  life  ;  and  the  elementary  instruction  which 
we  give  has  raised  the  qualifications  for  work,  as 
well  as  the  equipment,  so  that  the  proportion  of 
unemployed,  or  ill-employed,  is  little  changed. 
Nor  would  it  be  entirely  wrong  to  say  that,  in 
relieving  the  poor  man  of  the  direct  charge  of  educa- 
tion and  insurance,  we  have  put  the  difference  on 
his  rent. 

Of  our  poor-law  system,  that  lamentable  com- 
promise with  a  stupid  old  tradition,  it  is  difficult 
to  speak  with  patience.  The  able-bodied  idlers  of 
our  workhouses  and  our  countryside  are  a  mockery 
of  the  workers.  The  tramp,  the  professional  idler 
in  search  of  idleness,  maintained  in  his  repulsive 
ways  by  an  undiscriminating  system  of  poorhousing 
and  by  a  large  body  of  "  charitable  "  women,  is 
one  of  the  quaintest  survivals  of  an  older  order.  His 
father  idled  through  life  before  him,  and  he  in  turn 
drags  along  the  road  a  mate  and  children  who  will 
sustain  the  ignoble  tradition.  He  ought  to  be 
washed,  clothed,  and  put  on  an  industrial  estate ; 
and,  if  his  disease  prove  incurable,  he  ought  to  be 
anaesthetised  out  of  existence,  or  at  least  prevented 
from  reproducing  his  like. 


126  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

Then  there  are  the  emigration  societies.  One 
fears  that  in  large  part  they  transport  to  the  colonies 
either  the  men  whom  the  colonies  do  not  want,  the 
men  who  will  enlarge  the  slum-area  of  colonial 
cities,  or  the  men  whom  we  ought  not  to  spare.  At 
the  best,  emigration  is  a  means  of  leaving  the  problem 
of  poverty  to  our  grandchildren,  who  will  find  no 
more  open  spaces  for  the  dumping  of  our  human 
surplus.  In  point  of  fact,  however,  apart  from  the 
dispatch  of  a  small  proportion  of  specially  prepared 
boys,  emigration  is  not  affecting  our  problem  of 
poverty.  The  half-million  very  poor  of  London, 
with  the  corresponding  hundreds  of  thousands  in 
our  other  cities,  do  not  make  emigrants  at  all ;  and 
very  few  of  the  next  and  far  larger  class  are,  or 
could  be,  fit  for  agricultural  deportation. 

Lastly  of  these  devices  which  the  less  thoughtful 
are  apt  to  regard  as  relieving  poverty,  we  have  the 
Salvation  Army,  which  is  quite  the  most  prepos- 
terous social  sham  of  our  age.  But  its  religious- 
social  burlesque,  its  pretentious  concealment  of 
bad  results  and  loud  proclamation  of  good  results, 
its  refusal  to  print  a  plain  balance-sheet  from  which 
a  social  student  can  measure  the  definite  good  done 
and  the  cost  of  it,  its  undercutting  of  existing  work, 
and  so  on,  have  been  sufficiently  exposed  to  excuse 
us  from  dwelling  on  it.  It  contains  some  earnest 
men  and  women,  and  has  had  undoubted  successes, 
but  the  system  is  too  nebulous,  garrulous,  and  waste- 
ful to  merit  serious  attention. 

Let  us  turn  to  graver  matters.     The  mass  of  the 


THE  DISTRIBUTION  OF  WEALTH    127 

workers,  apart  from  the  more  advanced  bodies  of 
Socialists  and  Syndicalists,  believe  that  the  solution 
of  the  problem  of  poverty  will  be  found  in  the 
development  of  Trade  Unions  and  of  the  political 
power  of  Labour.  By  political  power,  with  the  aid 
of  sympathetic  members  of  the  middle-class,  they 
have  won  the  right  of  combination  and  a  whole 
code  of  labour-laws ;  by  an  increased  political 
power,  ultimately  a  political  all-power,  they  will 
secure  all  the  legislation  they  deem  expedient. 

In  spite  of  the  distraction  of  many  of  the  workers 
by  Anarchists  and  Syndicalists,  who  despise  political 
action,  and  in  spite  of  the  restrictions  of  the  franchise 
which  are  maintained  by  the  older  political  parties, 
it  seems  plain  that  at  some  not  very  remote  date 
the  workers  will  control  the  world.  Ever  since  the 
door  of  the  political  world  was  opened  to  Demos, 
eighty  years  ago,  he  was  certain  eventually  to  reach 
the  throne,  no  matter  how  long  he  might  be  seduced 
to  tarry  by  the  way.  Those  who  think  otherwise 
must  put  their  trust  in  the  permanent  unintelli- 
gence  of  the  workers.  The  interests  of  the  mass  of 
workers  are  so  far  identical  that  they  must  finally 
combine  to  promote  them.  We  are  plainly  moving, 
all  over  the  world,  in  this  direction.  In  Australasia, 
where  the  virgin  soil  permitted  an  exceptionally 
rapid  growth,  we  see  the  farthest  point  yet  reached, 
and  within  a  decade  or  so  Labour  will  have  unshak- 
able power  all  over  Australia,  at  least.  "  Con- 
servatism "  has  already  disappeared,  or  changed  its 
name  to  "  Liberalism."  In  Germany  and  France 


128  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

and  Belgium  we  see  the  same  disposition  of  the- 
rival  parties  to  unite  in  face  of  advancing  Demos. 
In  England  there  are  signs  that  we  shall  at  no 
distant  date  see  a  similar  redistribution  of  political 
forces,  and  it  is  anticipated  in  the  United  States. 
In  all  countries  the  political  energies  are  slowly 
gathering  about  two  poles :  Liberal  (including  the 
old  Conservatives)  and  Labour.  Even  in  such 
countries  as  Spain,  Russia,  Turkey,  Japan,  and 
China  the  initial  stages  of  the  development  may  be 
detected.  When  the  workers  at  last  unite  and 
secure  an  absolute  majority-power,  they  will  legis- 
late on  familiar  lines.  Wages  will  rise,  hours  of 
labour  will  be  shortened,  and  place  will  be  found  for 
larger  numbers  of  workers. 

It  is  little  use  moralising  on  this  change.  It  is 
coming  on  like  the  tide.  There  will,  no  doubt,  be 
temporary  abuses  of  power,  as  there  have  always 
been,  but  the  workers  will  learn  the  vital  needs  of 
an  industrial  order,  and  they  will  not  starve  the 
roots  of  their  new  prosperity.  Let  us  assume  that 
a  state  of  equilibrium  has  been  reached  :  that  the 
workers  have  paramount  political  power,  and  wages 
are  considerably  increased.  Does  this  promise  a 
solution  of  the  problem  of  poverty  ? 

I  am  purposely  leaving  out  of  account  the  con- 
temporary growth  of  rings  and  trusts.  Paradoxical 
as  it  may  seem  to  say  so,  they  are  not  an  essential 
element  of  the  problem.  The  employers  will  (as  is 
happening)  form  unions  in  face  of  the  men's  unions, 
and  the  strain  laid  on  individual  employers  and  small 


THE  DISTRIBUTION  OF  WEALTH     129 

companies  will  favour  the  growth  of  trusts.  In  so 
far  as  these  make  for  economy,  they  are  clearly 
useful ;  but  no  doubt  they  will  be  tempted  to  use 
their  monopoly  to  dictate  arbitrary  prices.  When, 
however,  the  workers  have  a  majority-power,  they 
can  either  slay  the  trusts  or  draw  their  teeth.  On 
the  other  hand,  a  beneficent  or  labour-saving  trust 
will  not  afford  any  advantage  to  the  less  skilful 
workers,  who  make  up  the  great  army  of  the  poor, 
and  it  will  reduce  prices  only  by  an  unimportant 
fraction.  The  chief  significance  of  trusts  is  that 
they  tend  to  annihilate  the  individualist  employer, 
who  was  once  considered  an  indispensable  institu- 
tion, and  they  may  thus  dispose  obstinate  admirers 
of  the  older  industrial  order  to  welcome  a  radical 
change.  They  are  more  deadly  to  the  middle-class 
than  to  the  working-class. 

The  really  vital  question  is  whether  the  raising 
of  wages  and  reduction  of  hours,  accompanied  by 
a  large  amount  of  secondary  legislation  to  the  ad- 
vantage of  the  worker,  will  solve  the  social  problem  : 
which  is  not  the  problem  of  the  existence  of  a  few 
thousand  prostitutes,  but  the  problem  of  the  exist- 
ence of,  in  every  country,  several  million  people 
who  live  in  privation  and  squalor,  and  cannot 
develop  human  personalities.  On  this  I  offer  two 
or  three  observations. 

Does  the  price  of  commodities  rise  in  proportion 

to  the  rise  of  wages  ?     If  it  does,  the  securing  of  a 

nominally  higher  wage  is  clearly  a  delusion.     This 

seems,  however,  to  be  our  experience.     In  England, 

10 


130  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

during  sixty  or  seventy  years  of  trade-combination, 
wages  have  risen,  and  hours  and  conditions  of 
labour  have  been  improved,  to  a  remarkable  extent, 
in  spite  of  open  competition  in  an  overcrowded 
market.  But  prices  and  rents  also  have  risen,  and 
it  is  not  clear  that  there  has  been  a  net  advantage 
to  the  worker.  It  is  very  difficult  to  answer  the 
question  precisely,  because  other  factors  (such  as 
the  application  of  science)  have  increased  the  pro- 
ductiveness of  labour  and  have  cheapened  certain 
commodities  (books,  clothes,  pictures,  tea,  etc.). 
The  workers  have  shared  these  advantages,  and  are 
in  a  position  of  far  greater  comfort  than  they  were 
formerly.  But  in  seriously  testing  the  claim  and 
promise  of  the  Trade  Unionist  and  the  Labour 
politician  we  have  to  endeavour  to  subtract  the 
improvement  in  the  workers'  condition  which  is 
due  to  the  application  of  science,  and  of  better 
methods,  to  production  and  distribution.  When  we 
make  allowance  for  this,  it  is  certainly  not  clear 
that  the  rise  of  wages  shows  a  margin  over  the 
increased  price  of  commodities :  that,  in  other 
words,  the  higher  wage  is  a  real  advantage. 

It  is  difficult  to  see  how  it  could  be  otherwise. 
When  wages  are  raised,  who  pays  the  increment  in 
the  cost  of  production  ?  The  employer  or  the  con- 
sumer ?  It  is  a  familiar  experience,  and  an  inherent 
necessity  of  our  industrial  order,  that  the  consumer 
does  ;  and  the  consumer  is  the  worker — the  middle- 
class  or  wealthy  consumer  generally  gets  the  differ- 
ence in  other  ways.  It  would  be  bold  to  say  that  our 


THE  DISTRIBUTION  OF  WEALTH     131 

employers  have  paid  even  a  fraction  of  the  increased 
wage  out  of  their  own  pockets.  More  usually  they 
put  a  fifth  of  a  penny  on  commodities  when  the 
worker  has  secured  a  sixth.  Competition  alone 
restrains  them,  and  this  is  largely  superseded  by 
agreements.  We  have  had  innumerable  instances 
of  this  during  the  war.  Class  after  class  of  workers 
claimed  a  higher  wage,  and  prices  rose  higher  and 
higher  "  on  account  of  the  increased  cost  of  pro- 
duction." If  a  Labour  Government  were  to  prevent 
employers  from  increasing  the  cost  of  commodities 
and  raising  rents  in  exact  proportion  to  the  demand 
for  higher  wages — were,  in  other  words,  to  direct 
the  employers  to  pay  the  increase  of  wage  out  of 
their  own  profits — we  should  soon  see  the  end  of 
this  industrial  order.  The  State  would  be  compelled 
to  become  the  employer. 

This  seems  to  be  true  of  practically  all  the  legisla- 
tion which  a  political  power  of  Labour  could  secure. 
Compensation,  pensions,  and  insurance  are  typical 
instances.  The  new  demand  on  the  employer's 
profits  is  met  in  one  of  two  ways  :  he  withdraws 
voluntary  contributions  to  these  or  similar  pur- 
poses, or  he  raises  the  price  of  his  goods.  The  larger 
consumer  meets  the  burden  by  raising  his  rents  or 
fees.  The  unreflecting  worker  imagines  that  "  the 
country  "  pays  for  these  things  ;  he  forms,  in  this 
respect,  a  larger  proportion  of  the  country  than  he 
thinks. 

The  second  and  more  important  consideration  is 
that  this  power  to  dictate  wages  and  pass  measures 


132 

in  favour  of  the  workers  does  not  hold  out  a  prospect 
of  absorbing  that  surplusage  of  labour  which  is  our 
real  problem.  I  am  assuming  that  even  the  poorer 
and  unskilled  workers  will  have  their  unions  and  their 
share  of  the  political  power.  Their  wage  will  rise, 
and  the  price  of  their  food  and  clothing  and  rooms 
will  rise ;  but  it  is  of  greater  consequence  to  reflect 
that  the  less  competent  workers  on  the  fringe  of  the 
industrial  army  will  receive  little  advantage.  Some 
benefit  they  will  certainly  have,  since  the  curtail- 
ment of  hours  and  the  slowing  of  the  pace  of  produc- 
tion will  make  room  for  more  workers  in  each 
industry ;  though  we  must  remember  that  the 
pay  of  these  new  workers  will  either  be  taken  from 
the  older  workers,  whose  hours  are  shortened,  or — 
which  comes  to  the  same  thing — will  be  put  on 
the  commodities.  The  total  production  will  not  be 
increased,  and  the  employer  will  not  relinquish  his 
profit.  In  any  case,  even  this  method  of  finding 
room  for  more  workers  will  affect  relatively  few. 

Again  I  may  quote  the  experience  of  Australia, 
where  the  workers  have  very  great  power.  In 
Melbourne,  alone,  in  1913,  I  found  30,000  men  un- 
employed ;  and  there  and  in  other  cities  the  tainted 
area  of  poverty  and  distress  was  increasing.  All 
the  elaborate  organisation  and  political  power  of 
the  workers  could  not  add  to  the  sum  of  available 
work  and  thus  absorb  the  surplus  of  labour.  I  am 
contending  that  until  we  do  this  we  do  not  solve 
the  poverty-problem.  The  chief  cause  of  this 
appalling  social  disease  is  the  inequality  of  natural 


THE  DISTRIBUTION  OF  WEALTH     133 

endowment — either  of  muscle  or  nerve — in  face  of 
an  unorganised  system  of  production.  There  is 
not  work,  with  regular  and  decent  wage,  for  all. 
The  weaker,  the  lazier,  the  more  drunken,  and  the 
slower  of  intellect,  are  crowded  out  of  the  ranks 
and  driven  to  casual  employment.  This  is  the 
tap-root  of  poverty,  and  the  benefits  secured  for 
those  who  are  in  regular  employment  will  not 
affect  it. 

Thirdly,  this  labour-legislation  will  not  touch  the 
second  chief  root  of  poverty,  the  extreme  inequality 
of  the  distribution  of  wealth.  Since  wealth  is,  in 
this  regard,  a  fixed  quantity, — we  are  not  concerned 
here  with  the  effect  of  fresh  applications  of  science 
to  production, — an  accumulation  of  commodities 
at  one  point  leads  to  thinness  at  another.  I  am 
not  pleading  for  equality  of  income.  Many  workers 
have  an  exaggerated  idea  of  the  gain  they  might 
have  by  an  equal  distribution  of  wealth.  The  total 
annual  income  of  the  population  of  the  United 
Kingdom  is  now  believed  to  be  about  £2,400,000,000. 
If  this  were  distributed  equally  amongst  the  heads 
of  our  ten  million  families  and  our  large  army  of 
unmarried  workers,  the  result  would  be  barely 
£200  a  year ;  and  the  equalisation  of  taxation,  the 
granting  of  substantial  pensions,  etc.,  would  further 
reduce  it.  There  is,  however,  no  serious  need  to 
discuss  this  idea.  I  see  no  moral  principle  which 
forbids  that  we  should  reward  a  man  according 
to  his  productiveness  or  inventiveness  or  other 
value  to  the  community,  although  his  fellows  are  not 


134  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

responsible  for  their  lesser  capacity ;  and  it  is  idle 
to  speculate  on  some  imaginary  phase  of  human 
development  in  which  the  more  gifted  and  more 
useful  will  refuse  to  be  more  richly  rewarded  than 
the  less  useful. 

But  it  does  not  follow  that  the  community  has 
no  right  to  control  the  distribution  of  wealth. 
At  one  time  such  a  proposal  would  have  been 
branded  "  robbery."  To-day  even  Conservatives 
do  not  threaten  to  remove  the  death-duties  and 
graduated  income-tax  by  which  we  confiscate  some 
of  the  wealth  of  the  more  fortunate.  The  only 
question  is,  to  what  extent  we  may  or  ought  to 
prevent  the  excessive  accumulation  of  wealth,  or 
to  disperse  it  after  accumulation. 

There  occur  at  once  two  methods  of  enrichment 
which  invite  careful  attention.  One  is  the  power 
to  transmit  wealth  to  one's  descendants  in  per- 
petuity, or  until  they  choose  to  dissipate  it.  Most 
of  us  will  admit  that  in  a  social  order  at  all  resem- 
bling our  own — and  I  do  not  care  to  speculate  about 
Utopian  or  imaginable  orders — the  power  to  win 
advantages  for  one's  children  as  well  as  for  one- 
self is  a  sound  incentive  to  work.  But  the  wish  to 
relieve  one's  descendants  of  the  need  to  work,  to 
make  them  for  ever  a  burden  on  the  community, 
is  a  perverse  ideal.  It  is  one  of  those  unsound 
primitive  traditions  which  we  detect  in  the  actual 
stream  of  our  ideas  and  sentiments,  and  instances 
are  not  unknown  in  our  time  of  such  holders  of 
hereditary  wealth  revolting  against  the  tradition. 


THE  DISTRIBUTION  OF  WEALTH     135 

When  we  realise  that  this  inherited  wealth  means, 
in  plain  terms,  the  right  to  have  a  hundred  or  a 
thousand  fellow-men  working  for  us  or  our  de- 
scendants in  perpetuity,  for  no  merit  or  service  on 
our  part,  and  when  we  consider  the  folly  and  waste 
which  so  commonly  follow  large  inherited  fortunes, 
we  must  regard  this  tradition  as  evil  and  inde- 
fensible. One  wonders  how  long  the  working 
community  is  going  to  sustain  this  burden,  and 
how  long  refined  men  and  women  will  imagine 
that  they  have  a  right  to  live  like  Oriental 
potentates  because  they  had  a  shrewd  or  a  gifted 
ancestor. 

It  is  sometimes  said  in  their  favour  that  they 
employ  labour  with  their  wealth.  I  have  heard 
bishops  give  them  this  foolish  consolation.  As  if 
the  wealth  would  cease  to  exist,  and  to  employ 
labour,  if  it  were  in  the  pockets  of  a  thousand  men, 
instead  of  the  pockets  of  one  Duke  of  Norfolk  or 
Duke  of  Westminster  !  The  only  difference  would 
be  that  this  wealth,  instead  of  paying  a  thousand 
servants  and  tradespeople  to  work  for  the  comfort 
of  one  family,  would  pay  a  thousand  men,  who 
would  lose  nothing  by  the  change  of  employment, 
to  produce  comfort  for  a  thousand  families.  Mean- 
time, the  Duke  is  embarrassed  by  his  wealth,  or 
spends  it  on  superfluous  things,  and  the  thousand 
families  live  in  vicious  misery.  Their  babies  die 
for  lack  of  good  milk  in  the  hot  summer,  and  the 
rich  youth  or  maiden — I  have  known  this  done — 
carelessly  takes  a  bath  of  milk.  Let  us  understand 


136  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

clearly  this  economic  truth  :  great  wealth  is  the 
accumulation  in  one  man's  hands  of  the  right  or 
power  of  a  thousand  families  to  employ  labour. 

The  second  source  of  wealth  which  invites  con- 
sideration is  the  unearned  increment  on  ground- 
values,  or  any  other  unearned  and  accidental 
increase  of  value.  It  is  now  very  commonly 
admitted  that  this  belongs  to  the  community, 
and  I  need  not  enlarge  on  it. 

We  have,  as  I  said,  admitted  the  community's 
right  to  interfere  with  this  scandalous  clotting  of 
wealth,  and  no  doubt  a  Labour-majority  would 
increase  death-duties  until  money  could  not  be 
transmitted  beyond,  at  most,  the  third  generation, 
and  not  in  quantities  sufficient  to  make  men  and 
women  a  lifelong  burden  on  the  working  com- 
munity. Possibly  some  day  there  will  be  a  general 
scrutiny  of  titles  to  wealth  :  not  merely  as  far 
back  as  the  enclosure  of  the  commons  a  hundred 
years  ago,  but  back  to  the  landing  in  this  country 
of  William  of  Normandy.  Possibly  a  day  will 
come  when  men  and  women  will  conceal  the  fact 
that  their  ancestors  "  came  over  with  the  Con- 
queror," since  it  generally  implies  that  the 
descendants  of  those  lucky  adventurers  have  not 
done  an  honest  day's  work  since  that  time.  Possibly 
the  sons  of  some  of  our  "  captains  of  industry  "  of 
a  century  ago  will  burn  the  family  records,  lest  some 
prying  historian  should  learn  by  what  horrible 
exploitation  of  child-labour  the  fortune  was  made. 
Prescriptive  right  is  a  purely  artificial  right  created 


THE  DISTRIBUTION  OF  WEALTH     137 

by  the  community,  and  it  may  be  withdrawn  by 
the  community. 

Such  measures  as  these  a  Labour  Government 
will,  no  doubt,  eventually  take,  and  they  will  do 
much  to  relieve  poverty  and  increase  the  production 
of  commodities  of  general  use.  But  they  will  add 
rather  to  the  comfort  of  workers  who  are  already 
above  the  poverty-line,  and  they  will  not  prevent 
an  excessive  accumulation  of  wealth,  though  they 
may  finally  disperse  it.  This  means  the  con- 
tinuance of  deep  poverty.  As  long  as  a  gifted  man 
may  amass  a  fortune  in  a  comparatively  short  time, 
without  adding  to  the  wealth  of  the  community, 
there  will  be  squalid  poverty  somewhere. 

In  sum,  if  the  political  ideal  of  Labour  were  fully 
realised,  it  would  not  put  an  end  to,  and  might 
not  very  materially  lessen,  our  widespread  poverty. 
It  would  not  enlarge  the  amount  of  available  pro- 
ductive employment,  and  so  the  weak  in  body  or 
mind  or  character  would  still  form  a  pitiable  army 
of  slum-dwellers.  It  would,  having  no  more  con- 
trol of  industry  than  the  present  Parliament  has, 
be  unable  to  meet  any  grave  disturbance  of  the 
industrial  world,  such  as  the  release  of  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  workers  by  disarmament.  It  would 
have  no  power  to  secure  for  the  workers  their  full 
share  of  the  advantage  of  any  new  application  of 
science,  and  it  would  be  unable  to  guide  into  new 
positions  the  men  displaced  by  this  application. 
We  should  continue  to  suffer  the  disadvantage  of 
an  imperfectly  organised  industrial  system  ;  each 


138  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

new  enlistment  of  the  great  forces  of  nature  or  of 
the  cunning  of  science  in  the  service  of  man  would 
enrich  a  few  and  impoverish  many.  In  order  to 
meet  all  these  grave  difficulties — in  order  to  do 
more  than  secure  certain  advantages  for  the  better 
equipped  workers  —  a  Labour  Power  would  be 
forced  radically  to  alter  its  principle  and  under- 
take the  organisation  of  employment. 

This  organisation  of  industry  seems  to  be  the 
only  device  which  will  gradually  restrict,  and  finally 
abolish,  poverty.  The  opposition  to  it  of  middle- 
class  workers  and  of  so  many  artisans  is  unin- 
telligible. It  is  time  that  we  ceased  to  confine  the 
term  "  workers  "  to  the  poorer  and  less  cultivated 
caste  among  those  who  work  :  time  that  the  lawyer 
and  actor  and  housewife  claimed  that  honourable 
title  no  less  than  the  carpenter  or  navvy.  In 
restricting  the  term  to  manual  and  badly  paid 
workers  we  have  concealed  from  ourselves  the  real 
community  of  interest  of  all  who  work.  All  of  us, 
except  those  who  live  on  the  labour  of  others,  have 
an  interest  in  the  proper  organisation  of  the  work 
of  the  world  and  the  removal  from  our  shoulders 
of  this  intolerable  burden  of  the  irregular  workers 
and  the  idlers.  The  middle-class  has  an  even 
greater  interest  than  what  is  narrowly  called  the 
working-class,  because  the  tendency  of  Labour- 
legislation  is,  and  will  increasingly  be,  to  put  the 
heavier  charge,  not  on  large  employers,  who  easily 
evade  it,  but  on  the  middle-class  generally.  Here 
again  the  war  has  luminously  illustrated  our 


THE  DISTRIBUTION  OF  WEALTH     139 

position.  Both  employers  and  employed  (in  the 
current  industrial  sense)  have  made  great  profit 
by  it :  the  middle-class  generally  has  suffered 
severely.  A  proper  organisation  of  work  would 
have  prevented  this. 

It  can  easily  be  shown  that  this  national  organisa- 
tion of  employment,  with  graded  incomes  according 
to  service  rendered,  is  the  only  remedy  of  poverty. 
The  chief  root  of  poverty  is,  as  I  said,  the  insuffi- 
ciency of  properly  paid  work,  and  this  is  entirely 
due  to  the  haphazard  and  unsystematic  nature  of 
our  industrial  order.  The  private  employer  looks 
only  to  the  actual  demand  of  commodities,  or  to 
the  actual  funds  for  buying  commodities.  He  has 
no  interest  in  the  moneyless  unemployed ;  indeed, 
he  finds  it  a  convenience  to  have  a  large  number 
from  which  he  may  select  his  workers.  As  a  result, 
a  large  proportion  of  our  people  are  unable  to 
demand  their  normal  share  of  commodities  because 
they  are  not  employed,  or  because  they  have  no 
wage  ;  and  they  are  not  employed  because  they 
do  not  demand  commodities.  Plainly,  the  com- 
munity alone  can  alter  this  paradoxical  state  of 
things  ;  and,  since  the  community  is  now  compelled 
by  its  more  humane  sentiments  to  carry  the  poor 
on  its  shoulders,  it  may  at  length  be  induced  to  see 
that  it  would  be  better  to  set  them  on  their  own 
feet.  In  a  properly  organised  industrial  system  a 
worker  will  be  paid  by  the  commodities  which  he 
or  she  actually  produces,  or  their  exchange-value. 
There  can  be  no  such  thing  as  a  superfluous  worker. 


140  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

It  is  only  a  lamentable  issue  of  our  perverse  pre- 
scientific  system  that  millions  must  lack  the  food 
and  clothing  and  luxuries  which  they  themselves 
could  and  would, .  under  a  more  orderly  system, 
produce. 

This  implies,  of  course,  the  transfer  to  the  com- 
munity, at  a  just  payment,  of  the  land,  the  mines, 
and  the  means  of  transit,  and  the  gradual  extension 
of  municipal  enterprise  to  productive  and  distri- 
butive industries.  I  am  contending  only  for 
principles,  and  would  refer  the  closer  inquirer  to 
such  detailed  constructive  works  as  those  of  Mr. 
H.  G.  Wells.  It  would  be  futile  to  construct  a 
rigid  scheme  of  collectivist  organisation.  Such 
industries  as  the  press,  literature,  art,  etc.,  present 
difficulties  which  it  would  be  foolish  to  override. 
But  these  affect  comparatively  few  workers,  and 
it  is  pedantry  of  an  unintelligent  kind  to  wrangle 
over  them  while  we  have  a  clear  case  in  regard 
to  other  industries  which  involve  many  millions  of 
workers.  We  would  do  well,  however,  to  remember 
that  the  middle-class  industries  themselves  are 
overcrowded  and  chaotic,  and  that  most  members 
of  that  class  would  gain  by  organisation,  wherever 
it  is  possible.  Instead  of  shrinking  from  it  and 
inventing  difficulties,  we  ought  to  be  eager  to  dis- 
cover its  possibilities. 

I  ignore  also  certain  more  or  less  academic  objec- 
tions which  have  been  made  against  this  proposal 
to  organise  employment.  Mill's  essay  On  Liberty  is 
a  monument  of  the  futility  of  this  kind  of  reasoning. 


THE  DISTRIBUTION  OF  WEALTH     141 

Mill  was  a  civil  servant,  and,  except  in  the  case  of 
the  idle  and  criminal,  no  restriction  of  individual 
liberty  is  proposed  other  than  that  which  Mill 
cheerfully  endured.  Middle-class  men  are  apt  to 
take  fright  at  the  word  "  Socialism."  It  ought  to 
be  by  this  time  generally  known  that  half  a  dozen 
very  different  theories  pass  under  that  name,  and 
it  is  particularly  unintelligent  to  confuse  the  extreme 
and  the  moderate  proposals.  Nearly  the  whole  of 
the  employment  in  any  civilisation  could  be  organised 
without  laying  on  any  who  are  willing  to  work  a 
greater  restraint  than  is  laid  on  officials  of  the 
postal  service.  As  to  "  confiscation,"  it  will  be 
gathered  from  an  earlier  page  that  I  favour  generous 
compensation  to  actual  holders  of  land  or  mines,  but 
no  perpetual  pensions. 

I  do  not  anticipate  from  this  change  all  the  ad- 
vantages which  some  Socialist  writers  expect.  Their 
schemes  of  high  universal  prosperity  seem  to  me 
to  have  an  absurdly  slender  basis  of  actual  work. 
Mr.  William  Morris  conjectured  that  if  all  of  us  were 
to  work  for  four  hours  a  day  there  would  be  enough 
produced  for  all  of  us  to  live  in  luxury  ;  whereas 
Mr.  Sidney  Webb  calculates  that  it  would  need 
six  hours'  work  a  day,  on  the  part  of  all,  to  produce 
the  necessaries  of  life.  It  is  true  that  a  very  large 
body  of  middlemen,  commercial  travellers,  footmen 
and  other  servants,  and  duplicate  workers  in  rival 
industries  would  be  set  free  for  sound  productive  or 
distributive  or  professional  work  ;  but  the  easing 
of  the  hours  of  our  actual  workers,  the  removal  01 


142  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

the  young  from  the  market,  and  other  collateral 
improvements,  must  be  taken  into  account.  If  we 
take  one  hour  a  day  from  the  actual  workers  in  our 
heavier  industries,  we  absorb  at  once  more  than 
a  million  new  men  without  increasing  production. 
In  any  case,  it  is  lamentable  to  dangle  before  the 
eyes  of  men  the  ideal  of  working  only  four  hours  a 
day.  We  want  more  of  Browning's  gospel  of  work 
with  cheerfulness.  No  doubt  the  idea  is  that,  if 
the  hours  of  labour  are  reduced,  the  leisure  will  be 
employed  in  reading  Bergson  and  mastering  Brahms. 
This  optimistic  theory  seems  to  be  at  variance  with 
our  experience.  Improvement  of  financial  position 
more  usually  means  the  substitution  of  Bass  or 
Dewar  for  cheap  ale,  and  of  stalls  for  the  gallery 
at  the  variety  theatre.  A  later  chapter  will,  how- 
ever, discuss  our  interests  in  this  connection. 

The  fact  remains  that  collectivism  is  the  only 
remedy  of  poverty.  The  redistribution  of  wealth, 
or  the  prevention  of  excessive  wealth,  would,  in  my 
view,  add  comparatively  little  to  the  wages  of  the 
millions  ;  and  we  must  not  put  to  the  credit  of  an 
economic  scheme  the  profit  of  such  changes  as 
disarmament.  It  is  not  this,  but  the  note  of 
efficiency,  organisation,  and  economy  which  appeals 
to  me  in  the  Socialist  ideal.  It  would  abolish  a 
vast  amount  of  duplicate  and  unnecessary  work, 
and  it  would  conduct  to  their  proper  place  in  the 
industrial  order  the  large  army  of  casual  workers. 
London  or  New  York  is  a  colossal  monument  of 
industrial  inefficiency.  Our  chaotic  mass  of  dupli- 


THE  DISTRIBUTION  OF  WEALTH     143 

cate  and  triplicate  rival  grocers,  bakers,  butchers, 
etc.,  our  rival  railways  and  other  purveyors  and 
producers,  with  their  separate  staffs  and  their  ap- 
palling waste  in  advertisement,  are  a  reproach  to 
our  intelligence.  We  want  an  orderly  and  econo- 
mical system  both  of  production  and  distribution, 
and  only  the  municipality  (or  else  a  vast  and 
tyrannical  trust)  can  conduct  it.  Most  of  all  we 
want  a  power  that  will  sweep  the  myriads  of  costers, 
hawkers,  newspaper-youths,  flower-girls,  casual 
porters,  loafers,  musicians,  etc.,  off  our  streets, 
and  put  them  to  productive  work.  We  want  a 
great  curtailment  of  certain  luxury-industries  and 
fictitious  industries.  This  would  give  us  an  im- 
mensely increased  volume  of  productive  work,  and 
a  great  saving  in  distribution.  The  middle-class 
has  not  less  to  gain  than  the  workers  by  such  a  scheme 
of  organising  our  resources,  and  it  offers  us  the 
only  confident  prospect  of  abolishing  poverty  and 
crime  and  gradually  uplifting  the  mass  of  the 
people. 

Naturally,  we  should  for  a  long  time  have  to  deal 
with  a  great  deal  of  refractory  material.  Idleness 
and  crime  are  diseases,  and  they  ought  to  be  treated 
by  the  methods  of  modern  medicine  :  scientific, 
humane,  sometimes  surgical.  Certainly  we  would 
exercise  "  tyranny ' '  in  dealing  with  these.  Probably 
in  a  properly  ordered  society  all  citizens  would  be 
enrolled  in  an  industrial  register.  The  hyper- 
sensitive would  have  the  same  guarantee  of  privacy 
as  under  our  income-tax  system,  and  the  police 


144  THE  TRYANNY  OF  SHAMS 

would  have  a  most  effective  means  of  locating  the 
criminal.  Any  who  were  permanently  refractory, 
or  showed  an  incurable  disposition  to  revert  to 
crime  or  to  the  vagrant  industries  which  disgrace 
our  cities  to-day,  would  have  no  moral  right  to 
burden  us  with  their  existence.  The  community 
would  offer  work  and  sufficient  wage  to  all.  The 
rest  might  disappear  into  segregated  "  homes  of 
idleness,"  or,  if  we  are  as  wise  as  we  ought  to  be, 
into  lethal  chambers. 

This  incurably  refractory  group  would,  however, 
probably  prove  smaller  than  many  believe.  We  are 
at  present  a  little  too  much  inclined  to  consult 
scientific  theorists  about  heredity  (which  is  still 
very  obscure  in  science)  and  too  little  inclined  to 
make  social  experiments.  I  am  assuming  that  a 
dozen  other  reforms  would  proceed  simultaneously 
with  the  reform  of  industry.  Education  would  no 
longer  confine  itself  to  giving  an  elementary  literacy 
to  children,  without  any  further  care  what  use  they 
make  of  their  literacy  ;  it  would,  as  I  will  suggest 
later,  seriously  concern  itself  with  the  adult  popula- 
tion. A  bolder  treatment  of  the  housing  question 
would  stimulate  those  who  have  evil  traditions  ; 
we  should  not  confine  ourselves  to  building  clean 
rooms  for  them,  which  they  might  make  filthy  if 
they  wished.  Prudential  restriction  of  the  birth- 
rate would  be  impressed  on  the  poorer  class,  with 
great  benefit  to  themselves  and  their  children  and 
the  State.  Eugenic  proposals  might  be  practically 
formulated  and  encouraged.  We  should  not  expect 


THE  DISTRIBUTION  OF  WEALTH     145 

industrial  betterment  to  have  some  mystic  or 
magical  effect  of  itself  in  uplifting  the  mass  of  the 
people ;  but,  until  this  betterment  occurs,  other 
efforts  to  help  them  will  be  seriously  hampered  or 
entirely  futile.  The  very  magnitude  of  the  task 
would  prove  a  magnificent  tonic  and  stimulation 
to  the  jaded  mind  of  the  community. 

An  increasing  number  of  middle-class  men  and 
women  now  recognise  that  this  is,  not  merely  the 
only  solution  of  the  problem  of  poverty,  but  the  most 
profitable  scheme  of  national  life  for  all  who  are 
willing  to  work.  So  detached  an  observer  as  Mr. 
Carveth  Read,  professor  of  Philosophy  at  London 
University,  observes  that  "  probably  the  future 
lies  either  with  Co-operation  or  with  Socialism  " 
(Natural  and  Social  Morals,  p.  211).  On  the 
Continent,  especially  in  Italy,  France,  Holland, 
Belgium,  Denmark,  Germany,  and  Russia,  there 
is  a  high  proportion  of  cultivated  and  professional 
men  in  the  Socialist  movement.  No  one  need 
fear  its  advance  except  the  idler  and  the  man  whose 
work  does  not  add  to  the  wealth  of  the  community 
or  facilitate  its  distribution.  It  is  the  application 
of  sound  and  tried  business-principles  to  national 
life  ;  and,  when  those  principles  have  first  been 
applied  to  the  governmental  machine,  and  made  it 
an  effective  and  disinterested  administration,  we 
shall  move  more  quickly  toward  the  Collectivist 
ideal. 

Some  may  wonder  that  a  student  of  science  should 
come  to  this  conclusion.  There  is  a  vague  idea 
ii 


146  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

abroad  that  an  individualist  struggle  for  existence 
and  survival  of  the  fittest  is  the  supreme  and  un- 
alterable law  of  life.  This  idea,  though  encouraged 
by  men  like  Mr.  Kidd,  is  due  to  a  merely  superficial 
acquaintance  with  biology.  In  past  ages  nature 
has  certainly  evolved  higher  types  mainly  by  a 
bloody  struggle  of  individuals  or  a  very  calamitous 
pressure  of  environment.  In  the  past :  there  is  the 
limit  of  the  teaching  of  biology.  A  new  thing — 
human  intelligence — has  now  entered  the  life  of 
the  earth,  and  it  has  in  countless  ways  superseded 
the  laws  (that  is  to  say,  practices)  of  unconscious 
nature.  The  human  mind  is  now  a  part  of  nature, 
and  therefore  "  natural  selection "  is  a  wholly 
different  matter  from  what  it  once  was.  Maurice 
Maeterlinck  has  suggested  this  with  his  usual 
felicity.  He  imagines  himself  on  a  hill,  from  which 
he  sees  two  watercourses  stretching  toward  the  sea. 
One  meanders  over  the  plains,  wasting  time  and 
space,  blindly  finding  its  way  over  the  uneven 
ground  :  that  is  the  old,  unintelligent  method  of 
nature.  The  other  waterway  stretches  straight 
across  the  landscape,  a  canal  cut  by  man  in  the 
course  of  a  few  years,  with  no  waste  of  ground  :  it 
is  the  new,  intelligent  method  of  nature.  By  this 
method  we  now  create  new  species  of  plants  in  a 
thousandfold  less  time  than  natural  selection  (in 
the  usual  sense)  could  do  ;  and  we  do  it  precisely 
by  dispensing  with  the  individualist  struggle,  by 
intelligent  arrangement  and  control. 

Early  science  set  up  unintelligent  nature  as  a 


THE  DISTRIBUTION  OF  WEALTH     147 

grand  model  for  man.  It  is  time  we  outgrew  this 
phase  of  infancy.  Intelligence  must  increasingly 
count  in  the  life  of  the  earth.  We  first  organise 
a  nation,  and  presently  we  shall  organise  inter- 
national life.  We  organise  particular  businesses, 
and  presently  we  shall  organise  the  whole  industrial 
life  of  the  planet.  There  is  no  part  of  human  life 
which  calls  more  urgently  for  the  application  of 
intelligence  than  this  disordered,  wasteful,  pitiless, 
poverty-saturated  industrial  world  of  ours.  Let 
us  treat  human  beings  at  least  as  intelligently  as  we 
treat  our  flowers,  and  as  humanely  as  we  treat  our 
horses.  We  do  not  entrust  those  to  the  tragedy 
of  struggle  and  survival.  We  need  not  fear  that 
there  will  be  any  restriction  of  the  development 
of  personality.  Under  such  a  Collectivist  system  as 
I  have  in  mind,  personality  will  be  developed  until 
every  man  and  woman  is  conscious  of  his  or  her 
share  in  the  control  of  the  destinies  of  this  planet, 
and  the  sheep-like  respect  for  ancient  traditions 
and  abuses,  which  impedes  our  progress  to-day, 
will  be  for  ever  abolished. 


CHAPTER   VI 

IDOLS   OF  THE    HOME 

AMONG  the  claims  of  reconstruction  which  the 
insurgent  literature  of  our  time  puts  forward,  none, 
perhaps,  so  startles  and  inflames  the  Conservative 
as  the  demand  for  a  reform  of  the  family.  Criti- 
cism of  this  institution  is,  in  fact,  so  severely 
punished  or  so  slanderously  misrepresented  that  it 
is  usually  exercised  in  the  more  or  less  impersonal 
form  of  the  drama  or  novel.  It  happens,  however, 
that  the  drama  or  the  novel  is  now  quite  the  most 
effective  means  of  inoculating  millions  with  critical 
ideas,  and  at  least  half  the  more  brilliant  novelists 
and  dramatists  of  Europe  employ  their  art  for  this 
purpose,  or  reflect  some  such  sentiments  in  their 
work.  Hence  the  outcry  about  the  "  unclean 
novel "  :  which  is  usually  far  cleaner  than  the 
Old  Testament,  but  more  critical.  Positivism  had 
assured  us  that  this  institution  would  be  transferred 
intact  to  a  human  foundation,  and  Murillo's  "  Holy 
Family  "  hung  reverently  over  the  hearths  of  the 
new  pagans.  Now,  half  in  fear  and  half  in  exulta- 
tion, the  clergy  cry  that  humanism  has  betrayed 

its  moral  poison  and  its  social  menace. 

148 


IDOLS  OF  THE  HOME  149 

Our  favourite  phrase  here  is  the  saying  that 
the  family  is  the  foundation  of  the  State.  If  one 
patiently  considered  the  matter,  one  would  discover 
that  the  divine  right  of  kings  was  once  regarded 
with  equal  confidence  as  the  indispensable  founda- 
tion of  the  State.  It  may  very  well  be  that  the 
divine  duty  of  the  family  is  no  less  open  to  recon- 
sideration. It  might  be  noticed  that  the  change 
from  aristocracy  to  democracy  was  at  one  time 
hailed  with  lurid  prophecy  even  by  distinguished 
moralists  and  sociologists,  yet  this  change  has  led 
to  greater  efficiency  and  prosperity.  We  might 
perceive  that  the  Christian  dogmas  were  once 
thought  vital  to  our  welfare,  and  it  may  be  that 
the  Christian  ethic  is  in  some  points  as  disputable 
as  the  Christian  dogmas.  Few  reflect  on  these 
matters,  and  the  writer  who  criticises  the  family 
is  denounced  with  peculiar  bitterness.  Quite 
certainly  that  tomb  of  dead  civilisations  yawns 
ominously  before  us  if  we  lend  ear  to  this  kind  of 
rebel.  The  family  is  so  plainly  indispensable  an 
institution  that  it  must  be  protected  from  criticism  : 
lest  we  be  tempted  to  dispense  with  it. 

I  propose,  however,  to  make  a  critical  study  of  the 
family.  Indeed,  I  venture  to  say  at  once  that  our 
ideal  of  the  family  is  so  encrusted  with  ancient 
superstitions  that  it  pressingly  invites  the  critical 
attention  of  our  age  :  that  the  family  is  the  founda- 
tion of  the  State  only  in  an  historical  sense,  not  in 
the  sense  that  a  State  cannot  be  based  on  any  other 
procreative  arrangement :  and  that  the  cloak  of 


150  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

superstition  and  rhetoric  that  we  have  put  about  it 
has  covered  for  ages,  and  still  covers,  an  appalling 
amount  of  vice,  hypocrisy,  and  misery.  My  point 
of  view  has  been  stated.  The  affairs  of  this  planet 
must  be  run  by  men  for  men.  The  supreme  aim 
must  be  to  lighten  the  burden  of  suffering  which 
we  inherit  from  a  less  intelligent  and  less  humane 
past.  Any  creed,  code,  or  institution  which  forbids 
progress  on  these  lines  must  be  assailed. 

The  first  and  most  damnable  superstition  in 
regard  to  the  family  is  the  claim  that  marriage  ought 
to  be  indissoluble.  In  its  strict  form  this  belief  is 
held  only  by  Roman  Catholics,  and  by  a  section 
of  the  Church  of  England  which  was  only  partially 
reformed  in  the  sixteenth  century  and  has  a  strange 
ambition  to  disavow  even  that  limited  reform. 
But  the  most  insidious  mischief  of  this  old  ideal  is 
that  it  has  embedded  deep  in  our  minds  the  feeling 
that,  although  indissoluble  marriage  is  an  intoler- 
able yoke,  we  must  be  very  chary  and  niggardly 
in  granting  relief.  This  feeling  we  ascribe  to  a 
wise  concern  for  our  social  welfare,  whereas  it  is 
due  to  the  subconscious  tyranny  of  the  old  super- 
stition. Recently  we  have  seen  the  strange  spectacle 
of  a  non-Christian  moralist  standing  amongst  our 
bishops  to  bar  the  way  of  reform :  seeking  to 
prolong,  in  the  name  of  humanity,  a  superstition 
that  darkens  the  homes  of  a  large  part  of  humanity. 
The  bishops  may  have  smiled. 

A  distinguished  sociological  writer,  Mr.  L.  Hob- 
house,  in  classifying  forms  of  marriage,  says,  with 


IDOLS  OF  THE  HOME  151 

unconscious  humour :  "  Marriage  is  indissoluble 
among  the  Andamanese,  some  Papuans  of  New 
Guinea,  at  Watubela,  at  Lampong  in  Sumatra, 
among  the  Igorrotes  and  Italones  of  the  Philippines, 
the  Veddahs  of  Ceylon,  and  in  the  Romish  Church." 
One  trusts  that  the  Roman  (and  Anglican)  Catholics 
like  the  company  they  keep ;  the  peoples  enumer- 
ated by  Mr.  Hobhouse  are  the  very  lowest  and 
least  intelligent  savages  known  to  science.  The 
Church  of  Rome  has  long  boasted  that  its  ideal  of 
indissoluble  union  is  the  final  and  culminating  point 
of  human  wisdom  in  regard  to  the  family.  It  now 
appears  that  indissoluble  marriage  was  the  most 
primitive  human  tradition,  and  was  discarded  by 
the  Roman  and  all  other  civilisations  when  they 
passed  from  childhood  to  manhood. 

Sociologists  have  been  accustomed  to  say  that 
monogamy  was  gradually  developed  out  of  pro- 
miscuity. This  was  mere  speculation,  and  Pro- 
fessor Westermarck  and  other  recent  authorities 
rightly  dissent.  The  institution  is  older  than 
humanity.  We  find  monogamic  family  life  among 
the  anthropoid  apes  and  amongst  the  lowest  peoples, 
which  represent  early  man ;  and  many  writers  on 
prehistoric  man  now  contend  that  we  find  him 
passing  from  family  to  social  life,  not  in  the  reverse 
way.  When  the  last  Ice  Age  forced  men  to  live 
in  caves,  and  the  scattered  families  clung  together 
and  formed  large  social  groups,  the  family  life  was 
modified,  and  few  of  the  higher  tribes  maintained 
the  primitive  form.  Reclus  tells  of  a  Khond  who, 


152  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

on  hearing  of  the  monogamous  life  of  the  wild 
Veddahs  of  Ceylon,  exclaimed  in  disgust :  "  They 
live  like  the  apes." 

We  may  assume  that  little  hardship  arises  from 
incompatibility  of  temperament  among  the  Igorrotes 
or  the  Veddahs,  and  there  is  no  need  to  describe 
the  eccentric  forms  of  marriage  which  arose  among 
higher  savages.  None  of  the  great  civilisations 
of  the  past  entertained  the  idea  of  indissoluble 
marriage.  The  clergy,  of  course,  know  nothing  of 
the  real  line  of  evolution,  and  (as  Bishop  Diggle 
has  done)  they  represent  the  Roman  system  as  a 
comparative  refinement  of  early  promiscuity,  on 
which  Christianity  was  to  make  the  final  advance. 
The  precious  testimony  of  Juvenal  is  invoked 
(against  the  warning  of  all  modern  historians)  : 
and  we  are  expected  to  shudder  because  St.  Jerome 
tells  us  of  a  Roman  lady  who  had  been  married 
a  score  of  times.  It  is  not  stated  what  harm  was 
done  to  the  lady,  or  to  anybody  else,  or  whether 
she  was  a  freak  in  her  generation.  It  is  enough, 
as  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward  knows,  to  say  that  divorce 
is  frequent  anywhere,  and  thousands  of  hands 
will  rise  to  heaven  :  what  the  precise  social  conse- 
quences are  the  thousand  of  heads  seem  to  regard  as 
irrelevant. 

I  have  read  most  of  the  literature  of  the  Roman 
Imperial  period,  and  have  found  that  the  greater 
part  of  the  statements  made  about  it  by  clerical 
moralists  are  rubbish.  Every  serious  student  knows 
that  it  was  precisely  the  more  rigid  and  intolerable 


IDOLS  OF  THE  HOME  153 

earlier  form  of  Roman  marriage  (the  confarreatio) 
which  led  to  laxity  in  the  early  Empire ;  that  the 
Roman  Lawyers  of  the  first  and  second  centuries, 
who  relaxed  marriage,  were  among  the  most  con- 
scientious that  the  legal  world  has  ever  produced ; 
and  that  in  the  time  of  St.  Jerome — an  embittered 
and  intensely  puritanical  priest,  who  says  worse 
things  about  his  sacerdotal  colleagues  than  he  does 
about  the  pagans — we  have  the  solid  testimony 
of  such  documents  as  the  Letters  of  Symmachus  and 
the  instructive  Saturnalia  of  Macrobius  to  show 
that  the  family  life  of  the  pagans  was  generally 
healthy,  sober,  and  harmonious.  There  is  not  a 
particle  of  proof  that  Roman  society  suffered  because 
of  the  facility  of  divorce,  or  generally  abused  this 
facility. 

But  the  misrepresentation  of  Roman  morals  is 
light  in  comparison  with  the  misrepresentation  of 
later  Christian  morals.  Christianity  took  its  ideal 
from  the  Jews.  Amongst  this  partially  civilised 
people  marriage  had  been  made  easy  for  the  male 
by  the  retention  of  polygamy,  and  it  was  not 
customary  to  consult  the  feelings  of  the  woman.  In 
the  course  of  time  Greek  influence  entered  Judaea, 
and  the  Rabbis  held  learned  debates  on  marriage 
and  divorce.  Both  the  stricter  and  the  laxer  view 
found  expression  in  the  New  Testament  and  in 
early  Christian  literature,  but  a  celibate  priesthood 
obtained  supreme  power  in  Europe  and  the  stricter 
view  was  enforced.  The  moral  consequences  were 
disastrous.  While  the  Roman  Curia,  which  could 


154  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

always  find  a  flaw  in  the  marriage  of  a  wealthy  man, 
was  enriched,  Europe  was  degraded,  and  sexual 
immorality  became  general.  It  is  enough  to  recall 
that  a  tradition  of  looseness,  in  strict  correspondence 
with  the  law  of  indissoluble  marriage,  survives  from 
the  ages  of  faith  to  our  own  time  in  the  Latin 
countries.  Some  have  spoken  of  "  the  hot  southern 
blood "  and  cast  the  blame  on  the  climate.  I 
would  invite  the  informed  moralist  to  run  his  eye 
over  the  map  of  the  earth,  and  ask  himself  whether 
chastity  increases,  or  the  sex-organs  lose  vitality, 
in  proportion  as  nations  are  removed  from  the 
Equator.  It  is  a  ludicrous  effort  of  Catholics  to 
conceal  the  evils  of  indissoluble  marriage.  Until 
the  Reformation  sexual  laxity  was  the  same  all 
over  Europe. 

In  England  the  old  priest-made  law  was  retained 
after  the  Reformation,  and  laxity  of  morals  was 
general.  Except  for  a  very  few  wealthy  people, 
divorce  was  impossible  until  1857,  when  a  slender 
measure  of  reform  was  wrested  from  the  clergy. 
This,  the  present  law  of  England,  a  miserable  com- 
promise with  religious  prejudice  and  a  permanent 
source  of  vice  and  misery,  puts  English  legislation 
on  an  important  aspect  of  "  the  foundation  of  the 
State  "  below  that  of  any  other  civilised  community. 
Instead  of  ridding  themselves  entirely  of  clerical 
influence,  and  directing  civic  life  on  civic  grounds, 
our  legislators  looked  still  to  ancient  Judaea,  and 
substituted  the  less  stringent  view  of  the  Rabbis 
for  the  more  stringent.  The  legendary  leader  of  a 


IDOLS  OF  THE  HOME  155 

rude  Arab  tribe  had  granted  divorce  for  adultery, 
and  the  English  nation  of  the  nineteenth  century 
followed  his  example.  The  result  was  the  most 
stupid  and  mischievous  law  of  marriage  outside  the 
sphere  of  the  Holy  Catholic  Church. 

English  people  are  proud  of  their  national  concern 
for  purity,  yet  they  tolerate,  and  their  priests 
defend  as  something  sacred,  a  state  of  law  which 
is  medieval  in  its  crudeness  and  barbarity.  When 
two  people  have  obeyed  our  counsel  to  marry 
early,  and  they  discover  that  they  have  misjudged 
each  other,  we  tell  them  that  there  is  no  relief  for 
them  unless  they  commit  adultery  :  which,  when 
it  is  committed,  we  brand  as  the  darkest  sin.  To 
the  husband  we  give  the  further  injunction  that  he 
must  be  cruel  to  his  wife  before  we  will  release  him. 
We  then,  although  we  take  especial  pride  in  the 
"  cleanness "  of  our  press  and  literature,  print 
whole  columns  about  their  conduct  in  suspicious 
situations, — sometimes  entitling  the  account,  in 
large  type,  to  attract  attention,  "  A  Horrible  Case," 
— and  we  ask  each  other  whether  England  is  not  in 
a  state  of  decay  and  contracting  the  continental 
spirit.  If  there  are  any  who  do  not  choose  to  com- 
mit adultery,  or  do  not  choose  to  have  their  servants 
bribed  to  describe  their  conduct  for  the  entertain- 
ment of  the  public,  we  grant  them  a  legal  permit  to 
be  happy  and  vicious,  or  miserable  and  virtuous, 
for  the  remainder  of  their  lives  :  the  thing  we  call 
a  judicial  separation. 

This  extraordinary  situation  is  certainly  a  slight 


156  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

improvement  on  indissoluble  marriage,  but  the 
pride  of  our  bishops  and  puritans  in  it  is  peculiar. 
One  may  not  expect  them  to  take  into  account  the 
suffering  which  hundreds  of  thousands  endure  under 
the  law,  but  the  adultery  to  which  it  leads  would 
seem  to  be  a  proper  subject  for  their  consideration. 
As  a  rule,  they  entreat  us  to  maintain  religion, 
whether  it  be  true  or  no,  in  the  name  of  morality  : 
here  they  ask  us  to  maintain  immorality  in  the 
name  of  religion, — in  the  name  of  a  supposedChristian 
precept, — and  we  obey  even  more  readily.  When  a 
Royal  Commission  recommends  that  our  law  be 
brought  into  line  with  the  law  of  other  civilised 
nations,  they  burn  with  indignation  and  inspire  a 
Minority  Report :  a  remarkable  mixture  of  con- 
tradictions, worthless  quotations,  and  irrelevant 
rhetoric.  The  question  of  immorality  they  shirk  ; 
and  to  the  unhappiness  which  large  numbers  of  our 
people  endure  under  the  present  law  they  are  so 
insensitive  that  they  hardly  mention  it. 

Such  consequences  are  to  be  expected  as  long  as 
we  borrow  our  social  legislation  from  an  ancient 
polygamous  nation  with  a  great  disdain  for  women. 
It  is  said,  however,  as  usual,  that  our  social  interest 
coincides  with  the  supposed  command  of  Christ. 
We  have  here  one  of  the  most  singular  confusions 
of  the  whole  controversy.  Marriage  is  held  to  be 
the  foundation  of  the  State,  because  it  is  believed  to 
be  the  surest  way  to  supply  it  with  citizens.  This 
duty  of  procreation  is,  in  fact,  the  only  feature 
which  disposes  priests  to  give  their  blessing  to  so 


IDOLS  OF  THE  HOME  157 

distasteful  a  thing  as  sexual  union.  Yet  when  a 
majority  of  the  Commissioners  recommend  that 
people  should  be  free  to  remarry  if  the  desertion, 
cruelty,  insanity,  or  imprisonment  of  one  spouse 
defrauds  the  State  of  its  supply  of  little  citizens, 
the  bishops  raise  their  crosiers.  Even  so  ascetic 
and  anti-feminist  a  divine  as  St.  Augustine  could 
not  deny  that  a  man  had  a  right  to  take  a  concubine 
when  his  wife  proved  sterile.  Our  divines  speak 
much  more  fervently  than  St.  Augustine  did  of  our 
social  interest,  yet  they  forbid  us  to  consult  it. 

In  sum,  we  have  generally  rejected  the  view  that 
marriage  ought  to  be  indissoluble,  and  we  pride 
ourselves  on  curbing  the  influence  of  priests ;  but 
our  whole  attitude  toward  divorce  is  shaped  by  the 
old  superstition  and  the  clergy.  In  the  name  of 
that  superstition  we  condemn  large  numbers  of 
our  fellow-citizens  to  live  in  deep  and  acute  misery. 
Which  of  our  social  interests  would  be  prejudiced 
by  granting  relief  to  the  man  or  woman  whose  life 
is  embittered  by  the  desertion,  incurable  insanity, 
cruelty,  or  criminal  conduct  of  his  or  her  partner  ? 
The  suggestion  is  preposterous ;  and,  if  we  do  not 
grant  this  relief,  adultery  is  in  their  case  a  venial 
offence,  if  not  a  right. 

Some  explain  that  they  fear  "  the  thin  edge  of 
the  wedge."  As  if  wedges  had  a  way  of  pressing 
deeper  by  their  own  weight,  once  we  have  admitted 
them  !  If  England  chooses  to  grant  these  reforms, 
and  no  others,  she  need  not  be  deterred  by  empty 
phrases.  But  I  believe  that  the  alert  and  resolute 


158  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

race  which  is  coming  will  go  much  further  than 
this.  Before  many  generations,  if  not  in  ours,  there 
will  be  divorce  for  incompatibility  of  temperament 
in  every  civilised  country.  Men  and  women  will 
be  divorced,  after  due  delay,  because  they  wish,  or 
when  one  of  them  can  show  grave  cause  to  separate 
from  the  other.  Ill-informed  people  express  a  con- 
cern about  the  children  or  the  social  consequences. 
They  do  not  take  the  trouble  to  inquire  what  happens 
in  some  of  the  American  States,  or  in  Denmark, 
Norway,  Sweden,  and  Switzerland,  where  there  is 
long  and  ample  experience  of  divorce  by  mutual 
consent.  The  social  consequences  are  just  what 
any  unprejudiced  person  would  expect :  happier 
homes,  and  more  healthily  engendered  and  reared 
children.  But  the  puritan  does  not  want  to  inquire  : 
he  is  not  sincere.  Would  he  agree  to  divorce  by 
mutual  consent  where  there  are  no  children  or  where 
either  or  both  parents  make  adequate  provision  for 
them  ?  He  would  not.  I  will,  however,  return 
later  to  the  question  of  children. 

Europe  will  be  far  happier  when  some  such 
humane  law  as  the  Danish  is  generally  adopted,  and, 
after  a  few  years'  separation,  the  discontented  are 
free  to  remarry.  But  no  one  who  is  acquainted  with 
the  tendency  and  influence  of  modern  literature  can 
fancy  that  this  will  be  the  last  state  of  the  old 
ideal  of  the  family.  From  the  first  years  when 
men  were  free  to  declare  their  opinions  without  fear 
of  the  stake,  writers  of  great  power  have  claimed 
the  right  of  what  has  come  to  be  called  "  free  love/' 


IDOLS  OF  THE  HOME  159 

Some  would  abolish  marriage,  but  the  normal  shape 
of  the  demand  is  that  men  and  women  shall  be 
free  to  love  and  beget  children  whether  or  no  they 
ask  the  blessing  of  Church  or  State.  By  the  latter 
part  of  the  eighteenth  century,  when  Goethe  took 
a  concubine  on  the  pagan  model,  many  of  the  first 
literary  men  in  Europe  pressed  this  demand,  and  it 
is  sustained  by  some  of  the  most  brilliant  writers 
in  every  country  to-day.  The  movement  exhibits 
the  slow  and  steady  growth  characteristic  of  reforms 
which  eventually  triumph.  It  is  no  mere  bubble 
on  the  surface  of  our  effervescent  life  ;  it  is  the  new 
intelligence  of  the  race  examining  the  old  traditions. 
Moralists,  lay  and  clerical,  have  a  preposterous 
way  of  representing  this  as  a  surging  of  selfish 
passion  against  the  barriers  which  human  experience 
or  superhuman  wisdom  has  erected.  There  is,  it  is 
true,  much  in  our  rebellious  literature  itself  which 
misrepresents  the  movement.  You  get  the  im- 
pression that,  as  the  eighteenth  century  questioned 
the  divine  right  of  kings  and  the  nineteenth  century 
that  of  priests,  the  twentieth  century  is  challenging 
the  divine  right  of  moralists.  But  this  is  due  to  the 
common  practice  of  giving  a  narrow  meaning  to 
the  word  "  immorality."  Goethe  and  Swinburne 
became  zealous  for  "  morality,"  but  they  never 
altered  their  opinions  on  "  free  love."  Sudermann 
and  Anatole  France  and  Perez  Galdos  and 
d'Annunzio,  G.  B.  Shaw  and  T.  Hardy  and  E. 
Carpenter  and  H.  G.  Wells,  are  sincere  moralists  : 
they  inculcate  honour,  truthfulness,  kindliness, 


160  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

and  justice  as  firmly  as  our  bishops,  and  more 
effectively  than  most  of  our  clergy.  It  is  not 
morality  that  stands  at  the  bar.  The  real  question 
is  whether  any  sound  moral  principle  implies  that 
marriage  alone  sanctions  sex-union :  whether 
social  good  or  social  evil  would  result  from  an 
alteration  of  our  standards. 

This  is  a  quite  natural  and  legitimate  question, 
and  any  healthy-minded  person  ought  to  be  able 
to  discuss  it  without  hysteria  or  vituperation. 
Christian  moralists  have  made  some  very  grave 
mistakes  during  the  last  thousand  years.  Humility 
and  disdain  of  the  flesh  were  for  centuries  extolled 
by  them  as  the  supreme  virtues :  cruelty  was 
classified  as  a  venial  offence.  Already  the  bulk  of 
our  divines  reject  the  virtue  of  asceticism,  and  they 
forbear  to  press  on  the  modern  world  the  kind  of 
humility  which  turns  the  other  cheek,  or  the  other 
pocket,  to  the  hooligan.  They  discover  that  social 
justice  has  been  singularly  neglected  by  their  pre- 
decessors, and  they  begin  to  suspect  that  war  or 
sweating  may  be  worse  than  unbelief  or  Sabbath- 
breaking.  It  is  not  at  all  unnatural  to  inquire 
whether  there  may  not  aJso  be  some  element  of 
error  in  their  sex-ethic. 

We  do  not  go  far  in  such  an  inquiry  before  our 
suspicion  is  confirmed.  The  evolution  of  the  virtue 
of  chastity  may  some  day  be  traced  by  a  cold 
scientific  investigator,  and  in  its  earlier  stages  it 
will  prove  extremely  interesting.  It  is  primarily 
connected  with  an  ancient  superstition  or  "  tabu  " 


IDOLS  OF  THE  HOME  161 

in  regard  to  sex-life  :  the  kind  of  primitive  and 
unreasoning  feeling  which  once  drove  women  to  the 
temples  of  Ishtar  in  parts  of  the  East,  and  still 
survives,  baldly  and  ludicrously,  in  the  "  purifica- 
tion "  process  to  which  a  recent  mother  must  submit 
in  the  Roman  and  Anglican  Churches.  This  old 
idea  that  there  was  something  "  unclean "  or 
mysterious  about  sex-life,  was  more  or  less  dis- 
carded when  men  passed  out  of  the  barbaric  stage, 
but  it  quite  evidently  survived  in  part  in  the  virtue 
of  purity.  A  man  or  woman,  it  was  thought,  had 
a  certain  mystic  superiority  if  he  or  she  did  not 
use  the  organs  of  sex.  Hence  the  widespread 
veneration  of  Vestal  Virgins,  Pythagorean  and 
Serapean  recluses,  priestesses  of  Isis,  Aztec  and 
Christian  nuns.  I  call  attention  particularly  to  the 
notion  that  these  celibates  were  in  some  sense 
superior  to  their  fellows,  because  it  shows  clearly 
the  connection  with  the  older  idea  of  a  mystic  un- 
cleanness  about  sex.  There  is,  of  course,  no  rational 
ground  for  this  superstition,  though  even  philo- 
sophers have  entertained  it.  There  is  a  large 
and  elegant  literature  about  it,  from  the  Enneads 
of  Plotinus  to  Bulwer  Lytton's  Zanoni  or  the  works 
of  Miss  Corelli. 

Most  of  us  see  quite  clearly  the  barbaric  strain 
lingering  in  this  admiration  of  virginity,  but  we  do 
not  perceive  how  far  our  virtue  of  purity  is  a  com- 
promise with  this  ancient  superstition.  I  mean 
that,  together  with  sound  elements  which  I  will 
discuss  presently,  the  sentiment  of  purity  or  chastity 
12 


162  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

retained  a  good  deal  of  the  old  irrational  view  of 
sex.  Luther  boldly  attacked  the  theoretical  asceti- 
cism of  the  medieval  Church,  but  in  the  end 
Protestantism  compromised  with  the  old  tradition. 
This  again  is  quite  plainly  seen  when  we  reflect 
on  the  way  in  which  Church  people,  and  many 
of  our  modern  mystics  and  feminists,  breathe  the 
word  "  lust."  It  means  merely  pleasure  in  sexual 
intercourse,  but  it  has  to  be  mentioned  as  rarely 
as  possible,  and  with  downcast  eyes  and  an  air  of 
very  distinct  disapproval.  The  impression  is  con- 
veyed that  it  is  a  thing  invented  by  the  devil,  but 
reluctantly  permitted  by  the  Almighty  because 
the  race  had  to  be  maintained.  The  blessing  of  the 
Church  made  it  a  barely  permissible  luxury.  We 
have  only  to  reflect  that  "  lust  "  does  not  mean 
unwedded  love,  but  sexual  pleasure  or  desire  under 
any  conditions,  to  recognise  the  trail  of  the  old 
tabu  over  the  whole  range  of  these  sentiments. 

In  the  nineteenth  century  the  evolution  of  morals 
took  a  strange  turn.  Neither  clergy  nor  laity  had 
before  that  time,  speaking  generally,  observed 
chastity  in  practice,  but  the  rise  of  non-Christian 
critics  in  the  eighteenth  century  had  compelled  the 
clergy  to  be  more  faithful  to  their  own  precepts. 
This  (and  the  growth  of  such  movements  as  Wesley- 
anism)  led  to  more  concern  about  virtue,  and  when 
the  English  Agnostic  school  arose  its  leaders  were 
taunted  by  the  clergy  with  a  wish  to  rationalise  or 
alter  morality.  By  a  natural  reaction  they  culti- 
vated a  particular  zeal  for  virtue,  and  accepted  the 


IDOLS  OF  THE  HOME  163 

old  code  in  its  entirety.  Those  moralists  who 
appealed  to  a  "categorical  imperative"  or  an 
"  intuition  "  had  no  difficulty  in  doing  this.  Indeed, 
any  man  who  to-day  accepts  the  Stoic  idea  of 
morality,  or  the  aesthetic  idea  (that  virtue  is  so 
beautiful  that  we  must  cultivate  it),  has  as  much 
right  as  the  Christian  to  profess  a  regard  for  chastity. 
There  ensued  a  kind  of  rivalry  of  virtue  between 
the  clergy  and  the  new  pagans.  It  has  ended  in 
the  curious  spectacle  of  our  modern  clergy,  whose 
historical  knowledge  is  both  slender  and  peculiar, 
claiming  that  their  Churches  are  the  most  faithful 
preachers  of  purity  the  world  has  ever  known,  while 
Agnostic  moralists  indignantly  dispute  their  sup- 
posed monopoly. 

The  extreme  complexity  of  this  evolution,  and 
the  fact  that  few  of  us  reflect  critically  at  all  on 
our  moral  sentiments,  must  excuse  me  for  making 
this  lengthy  analysis.  It  shows  that  our  conception 
of  chastity  still  contains  a  large  amount  of  the  old 
non-rational  tradition,  and  that  any  man  or  woman 
who  declines  (as  so  many  do  to-day)  to  bow  to 
mystic  and  obscure  commands  has  a  right  to  examine 
it  closely.  In  one  of  my  works  (Life  of  G.  J. 
Holyoake,  ii.  65)  I  have  shown  that  so  sensitive  a 
moralist  as  J.  S.  Mill  admitted  this.  Obviously, 
the  precept  of  purity  or  chastity  has  a  totally 
different  basis  from  all  the  other  recognised  moral 
precepts.  These  others  are  invariably  social  laws, 
and  the  transgression  of  them  is  invariably  a  social 
hurt.  Life  itself  furnishes  the  reply  if  a  man  asks 


164  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

why  he  ought  to  be  just,  kind,  and  truthful :  the 
answer  is  not  so  obvious  when  he  asks  why  he 
ought  to  be  chaste. 

This  will  become  very  much  clearer  if  we  examine 
our  resentment  of  "  immoral "  actions.  In  the 
majority  of  cases  we  condemn  them  on  moral 
principles  quite  apart  from  chastity.  Europe  has 
in  this  respect  been  lamentably  misled  by  its  pro- 
fessional moralists,  and  we  can  hardly  be  surprised 
that  in  practice  it  so  largely  ignored  them.  It  is 
quite  plain  that  a  man  or  woman  who  has  married 
on  the  usual  terms — mutual  fidelity — and  they 
remain  unaltered,  is  bound  by  honour  and  justice 
to  observe  the  contract.  Adultery  is  in  such  a 
case  (the  usual  case)  condemned  by  moral  principles 
which  have  a  very  much  clearer  basis  than  chastity. 
Again,  justice  sternly  forbids  a  man  to  inflict,  or 
run  the  risk  of  inflicting,  grave  injury  on  a  woman 
by  causing  her  to  have  a  child  in  a  social  order  which 
will  heavily  punish  her  for  doing  so.  Here  also 
there  is  a  firm  reason,  apart  from  chastity,  for  moral 
resentment.  When  we  eliminate  these  other  moral 
sentiments  from  our  condemnation  of  immoral  acts, 
there  is  certainly  no  social  ground  of  resentment 
left ;  and,  as  I  said,  I  am  not  arguing  against  a 
Stoic  or  aesthetic  or  theological  view.  Socially, 
it  would  be  an  enormous  improvement  if  we  kept 
this  analysis  in  mind.  If  moralists  talked  less 
about  "  vice,"  which  has  an  academic  sound,  and 
more  about  "  crime  "  and  honour,  there  would  be 
less  suffering  in  the  world.  The  experience  of  two 


IDOLS  OF  THE  HOME  165 

thousand  years  has  not  commended  the  Church's 
practice  of  denouncing  vice  when  it  ought  to  have 
appealed  to  a  man's  sense  of  honour  or  justice.  It 
put  the  accent  on  the  wrong  syllable.  Many  a  man 
will  shrink  from  an  act  which  is  unjust,  or  may 
involve  cruelty,  if  he  is  accustomed  to  regard  it  as 
such.  He  is  not  so  effectively  intimidated  by  terms 
like  virtue  and  vice,  which  require  a  whole  moral 
philosophy  or  theology  to  invalidate  them. 

But  I  am  not  for  a  moment  contending  that  this 
removal  of  the  accent  from  one  syllable  to  another 
leaves  the  law  as  it  was.  It  is,  on  the  contrary, 
the  very  essence  of  my  contention  that  the  law 
must,  in  the  real  interest  of  men  and  women,  be 
altered  and  that  a  large  amount  of  ethical  tyranny, 
which  has  no  justification,  must  be  abandoned. 
Let  me  first  put,  with  entire  candour,  what  seems 
to  me  to  be  the  only  rational  reconstruction  of  sex- 
morality  on  a  social  basis,  and  then  we  may  regard 
the  reasons  for  advocating  it. 

It  is,  as  I  said,  clear  that  if  a  man  or  woman 
marries  on  a  strict  monogamous  contract,  and  holds 
his  or  her  partner  to  that  contract,  there  is  a  plain 
obligation  of  justice  to  adhere  to  it.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  a  man  and  woman  choose  to  marry  on  any 
other  understanding,  or  choose  to  grant  each  other 
(as  is  now  frequently  done)  a  greater  liberty  than  the 
contract  implies,  their  behaviour  is  entirely  their 
own  concern,  and  no  moralist  who  takes  his  stand 
on  purely  social  grounds  has  anything  to  say  to  it. 
In  regard  to  unmarried  intercourse,  it  is  further 


166  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

plain  that  a  man  commits  an  immoral  or  anti- 
social act  who  entails  on  an  unmarried  woman  the 
grave  injury  which  child-bearing  does  entail  in 
our  social  order  generally.  It  must,  however,  be 
recognised  that  guilt  is  in  this  case  entirely  relative 
to  circumstances.  Where  public  opinion  does  not 
make  a  pariah  of  such  a  woman,  where  no  risk  of 
suffering  is  involved,  such  an  act  of  "  free  love  "  is 
no  concern  of  the  social  moralist.  Hence,  if  two 
people  of  mature  intelligence,  making  a  just  pro- 
vision for  possible  children,  choose  to  live  together 
without  marriage,  it  is  entirely  their  own  concern ; 
and  if  any  woman,  strong  and  judicious  enough 
to  take  the  responsibility  of  her  acts,  chooses  love 
without  marriage,  it  is  her  own  concern. 

If  there  seems  to  be  an  unfamiliar  coldness  and 
deliberation  about  this  defence  of  "  licence,"  it  is 
enough  to  recall  the  familiar  circumstances.  One 
cannot,  as  a  rule,  inquire  dispassionately  into  this 
subject  without  raising  an  hysterical  storm.  The 
clergy  and  other  puritans  accuse  a  man  of  the 
basest  and  most  selfish  motives  ;  they  seem,  indeed, 
so  incapable  of  understanding  that  a  man  may  plead 
for  this  moral  reconstruction  on  motives  at  least 
as  unselfish  and  elevated  as  their  own  that  their 
obtuseness  does  little  credit  to  their  own  moral 
physiognomy.  They  make  fanatical  appeals  to 
undiscriminating  prejudice,  repeat  silly  phrases 
about  "  passion  "  and  "  farmyard  morals,"  and 
rely  on  intimidation.  The  consequence  is,  that 
ordinary  folk  openly  bow  to  their  rhetoric  and 


IDOLS  OF  THE  HOME  167 

secretly  ignore  it.  Any  properly  observant  person 
can  find  out  in  a  week  to  what  extent  London 
observes  the  virtue  of  purity.  It  is  then  left  to 
rebellious  poets  and  novelists  and  other  artists  to 
make  fiery  onslaughts  on  the  tyranny  :  to  speak  of 
virtue  as  "  the  ash  of  a  burnt-out  fire,"  to  chant 
"  the  roses  and  raptures  of  vice,"  or  to  say  scorn- 
fully with  Blake : 

"And  priests  in  black  gowns  were  walking  their  rounds, 
And  binding  with  briars  my  joys  and  desires." 

Therefore  I  have  chosen  to  apply  to  the  issue  the 
cold  deductive  processes  with  which  experience  as  a 
professor  of  moral  philosophy  has  made  me  familiar. 
As  I  said,  the  Christian  is  free  to  observe  his  supposed 
divine  command,  the  Stoic  may  bow  to  a  mystic 
and  inscrutable  law,  the  moral  aesthete  may  enthuse 
over  the  charm  of  virtue  ;  but  I  maintain  that  the 
sociological  or  utilitarian  view  of  morals,  which  is 
now  generally  accepted  by  the  vast  number  of 
people  who  have  ceased  to  be  Christian,  cannot 
control  sex-relations  in  any  other  sense  than  this. 
A  man  must  avoid  injustice  and  hardship  :  a  woman 
must  use  her  discretion.  Indeed,  as  the  clergy  and 
the  puritans  now  take  their  stand  commonly  on 
social  grounds,  these  social  considerations  are 
effective  against  them. 

But  the  question  is  not  merely  academic.  These 
cold  and  severe  deductions  are  very  properly  opposed 
to  the  heated  phraseology  and  sentimentality  of 
Conservatives,  who  profess  to  be  concerned  about 


168  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

our  social  welfare,  but  I  am  really  pleading  for  the 
greater  happiness  of  the  race,  the  lessening  of 
hypocrisy,  the  curtailment  of  a  system  of  prostitu- 
tion which  makes  the  lives  of  so  many  women  end 
in  horror.  With  all  their  talk  about  our  "  social 
welfare,"  the  clergy  and  their  puritan  supporters 
are  in  this  respect  the  gravest  disturbers  and  re- 
stricters  of  our  social  welfare  ;  and  the  insolence 
with  which  they  assail  every  attempt  at  reform  is 
ludicrous  in  view  of  their  own  record  and  gravely 
prejudicial  to  the  advance  of  human  happiness.  It 
is  not  a  question  of  abolishing  marriage,  or  of  inter- 
fering with  the  liberty  of  any.  At  one  moment 
the  clergy  represent  marriage  as  so  beneficent,  so 
solidly  established  in  the  hearts  of  our  people,  that 
only  a  morbid  sensualist  ever  assails  it ;  and  the 
next  moment  they  suggest,  in  effect,  that  if  we 
relax  our  coercion,  people  will  abandon  marriage 
in  such  numbers  that  the  social  order  will  be  over- 
whelmed. Let  us  have  sincerity  and  liberty. 

But  neither  is  it  a  question  of  spreading  a  gospel 
of  "  free  love,"  in  the  perverse  sense  in  which  the 
clergy  conceive  such  a  gospel.  The  considerations 
I  have  given  above  should  make  this  plain  enough. 
It  is  a  question  of  securing  freedom  and  love  for 
the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  mature  women  who 
cannot  marry,  or  who  do  not  choose  to  enter  upon 
the  very  precarious  experiment  of  surrendering 
their  privacy  and  independence  :  a  question  of 
breaking  the  tyranny  of  an  old  superstition  which, 
by  means  of  public  opinion,  forbids  so  many  women 


IDOLS  OF  THE  HOME  169 

to  have  the  child  they  desire  to  have,  or  the  share 
of  happiness  from  which  they  are  excluded  :  a 
question  of  putting  an  end  to  a  vast  amount  of 
needless  suffering  and  privation  and  hypocrisy. 
The  State  would  gain  rather  than  lose  by  this 
freedom  :  it  is  the  Church  only  that  would  suffer. 
Thousands  of  women  already  hold  these  views,  as 
the  open  circulation  of  the  Freewoman  (a  few  years 
ago)  and  of  our  bolder  novelists  shows.  The  feeling 
gains  ground  yearly,  and  the  time  is  approaching 
when  that  seal  of  ignominy  which  our  priest-made 
law  puts  on  the  "  illegitimate  "  child  will  be  removed, 
and  men  and  women  will  cease  to  speak  of  "  lust." 
Sex-pleasure  has  no  more  taint  than  any  other,  and 
the  notion  that  it  is  justified  only  as  an  accompani- 
ment to  the  begetting  of  children,  or  to  lessen  the 
risk  of  adultery,  is  childishly  irrational  and  generally 
insincere.  Laws  there  must  be :  but  the  laws 
must  be  made  for  men,  not  men  for  the  laws.  It 
is  time  that  Europe  shook  off  the  conceptions  of 
conduct  which  were  imposed  on  it  by  impotent 
monks  like  Gregory  VIL,  and  framed  its  own  rules 
in  accordance  with  the  new  and  healthier  attitude 
toward  life.  Asceticism  is  a  commercial  speculation 
—the  sacrifice  of  earth  for  a  double  share  of  heaven 
— which  we  have  no  longer  reason  to  appreciate. 

The  progress  of  this  view  will  be  assisted  by  two 
contemporary  reforms  of  received  opinion.  One 
regards  the  economic  dependence  of  woman  on 
man,  which  I  will  discuss  later.  I  need  only  recall 
here  that  some  of  the  worst  evils  of  our  marriage- 


170  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

system — the  scheming  and  bartering  and  linking  for 
life — are  due  to  this  dependence.  The  other  reform 
is  the  widespread  and  increasing  rejection  of  the 
old  idea  that  a  woman  must  bear  as  many  children 
as  nature  will  permit  her  to  have. 

There  is  amongst  us  a  disgusting  amount  of 
hypocrisy  in  regard  to  this  question.  The  majority 
of  educated  people  of  all  classes,  even  many  of 
the  clergy,  now  practise  artificial  limitation  of  the 
family,  yet  we  proceed  on  the  fiction  that  this  is  a 
disreputable  practice.  We  turn  into  pornographic 
d6pots  the  shops  which  sell  contraceptives,  and  we 
allow  an  antiquated  law  to  be  drastically  enforced 
against  men  who  would  be  decent  purveyors  of  the 
things  we  use  in  secret.  We  have  talked,  and  read 
journalistic  articles,  about  "  the  dwindling  popula- 
tion of  France  "  for  twenty  years,  though  it  is  only 
within  the  last  year  or  so  that  it  has  even  slightly 
decreased  ;  and  the  birth-rate  alone  shows  that 
London  and  Berlin  and  every  other  great  city  are 
rapidly  approaching  the  condition  of  Paris.  We 
listen  without  protest  to  the  lamentations  of  half- 
informed  faddists  on  the  limitation  of  the  birth- 
rate in  ancient  Rome  (where  the  practice  was  confined 
to  a  few,  and  proved  an  excellent  means  of  saving 
the  State  by  ridding  it  of  a  worn-out  nobility)  or 
the  medieval  republics  of  Italy.  And  while  we 
perpetrate  these  and  a  hundred  other  follies,  we 
know  that  the  majority  of  us  who  are  educated  and 
unprejudiced  find  the  practice  humane  and  com- 
mendable. We  would,  it  seems,  rather  leave  frail 


IDOLS  OF  THE  HOME  171 

girls  to  the  mercy  of  quacks  and  dangerous  operators 
than  tell  them  openly  what  better-educated  ladies 
do  to  avoid  conception. 

Yet  we  have  not  here  even  the  excuse  of  an  antique 
religious  command.  The  Catholic  Church,  it  is 
true,  severely  condemns  the  use  of  contraceptives, 
but  one  finds  that  its  prohibition  is  based  merely 
on  the  reasoning  of  medieval  celibates.  With  those 
who  argue  that  the  practice  is  "  against  nature " 
one  hardly  needs  to  discuss.  Half  the  distinctive 
things  of  civilisation  are  "  against  nature,"  nor  is 
there  any  reason  why  we  should  not  depart  from 
the  ways  of  that  ancient  and  unintelligent  dame. 
Hardly  less  foolish  is  the  alarm  about  our  dwindling 
birth-rate.  With  every  industry  and  profession 
already  much  overcrowded,  we  do  not  act  very 
intelligently  in  censuring  the  modern  restriction 
of  production.  But  these  are,  to  a  great  extent, 
either  wholly  insincere  expressions  or  confused 
repetitions  of  ancient  prejudices.  In  France,  where 
a  society  arose  for  the  checking  of  the  practice,  it 
was  found  that  the  members  had  an  average  of  one 
child  and  a  half  in  each  family.  A  similar  census 
among  the  writers  and  associations  which  attack 
Malthusianism  in  England  might  yield  an  instructive 
result. 

One  can  understand  the  hostility  to  Malthusian- 
ism— or,  rather,  Neo-Malthusianism,  since  Malthus's 
idea  of  restricting  population  by  avoiding  inter- 
course is  unnecessarily  heroic — in  a  country  like 
Australia,  which  urgently  requires  population ; 


172  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

though  even  in  Australia  the  opposition  is  futile. 
One  can  understand  such  hostility  in  a  land  which 
has  universal  conscription,  and  neighbours  with  a 
superior  army  ;  though  I  have  elsewhere  pointed  out 
the  sensible  and  natural  way  to  settle  this  difficulty. 
But  it  is  quite  irrational  in  such  a  city  as  London. 
Five-sixths  of  us,  it  has  been  demonstrated,  do  not 
attend  church  or  take  our  code  of  life  meekly  from 
the  clergy,  as  our  fathers  did  ;  our  labour-market 
is,  in  every  division,  enormously  overcrowded ;  and 
our  army  is  not  affected  by  the  dwindling  birth- 
rate. Why,  in  these  circumstances,  should  the 
women  of  England  be  asked  to  undergo  the  pain 
and  sickness  and  weariness  of  a  yearly  birth,  and 
wear  out  their  lives  in  the  rearing  of  a  large  family  ? 
Men  have,  as  a  rule,  too  little  appreciation  of  the 
terrible  burden  they  lay  on  their  wives,  but  their 
own  interest  at  least  ought  to  weigh  with  them. 
Why  be  constrained  to  find  the  resources  for  rearing 
and  educating  a  large  family  when  a  smaller 
family  will  give  better  chances  to  the  children  and 
conduce  to  the  happiness  of  the  home  ? 

To  these  questions  the  only  answer  is  an  irrational 
outpouring  of  antique  rhetoric.  It  is  mere  "  lust  " 
to  have  commerce  without  children  :  it  is  "  selfish  " 
to  wish  to  live  in  greater  comfort  by  restricting  the 
family  :  it  is  "  unnatural."  The  man  who  would 
lessen  the  suffering  of  his  companion  in  life,  and 
obtain  greater  advantages  and  more  loving  care  for 
his  children  by  restricting  their  number,  may  smile 
at  the  futility  of  this  kind  of  rhetoric.  But  it  is 


IDOLS  OF  THE  HOME  173 

surely  time,  in  the  second  decade  of  the  twentieth 
century,  to  meet  it  with  a  frank  and  curt  declaration 
that  we  have,  and  will  use,  a  right  to  any  pleasure 
which  this  life  affords,  provided  it  hurt  no  one. 
The  last  trace  of  asceticism  should  be  trodden  under- 
foot. The  medieval  clergy  were  a  body  of  a  few 
fanatics  leading  an  army  of  hypocrites.  Their 
ideas  have  no  place  in  our  life.  Love  and  j  oy  and 
comradeship  are  in  themselves  as  much  ours  as  the 
scent  of  the  rose  or  the  flavour  of  wine.  It  is  time 
that  we  echoed  defiantly  the  sneering  words  of  the 
apostle,  and  said  :  Yes,  let  us  eat  and  drink,  for  to- 
morrow we  die.  We  are  not  likely  to  forget  that 
life  has  other  pleasures,  of  culture  and  art,  besides 
those  of  the  palate  or  of  love.  The  supreme  com- 
mandment is,  as  old  Egypt  said :  "  Thou  shalt 
make  no  man  weep."  The  supreme  virtue  is  to 
quicken  the  hearts  of  men  with  joy  and  fill  their 
minds  with  truth.  And  the  time  will  come  when 
the  clergy,  reading  aright  for  the  first  time  the 
life  of  the  ages  of  faith,  will  say  :  "  We  never 
insisted  on  our  theoretical  asceticism  until  those 
dour  sceptics  of  the  nineteenth  century  compelled 
us :  the  Middle  Ages  were  the  ages  of  liberty." 

The  clergy  are,  in  fact,  in  a  dilemma.  The  cry  of 
the  hour  is  "  social  consequences."  There  is  a  vast 
amount  of  doleful  recalling  of  dead  civilisations 
and  prediction  of  coming  woe ;  though  England 
was  never  before  so  prosperous,  solid,  and  free  from 
crime.  But  dogmas  have  worn  so  thin  that  we  must 
be  pressed  to  maintain  them,  even  if  they  are  false, 


174  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

on  social  grounds.  The  answer  is  quite  simple. 
If  any  social  quality  or  rule  of  conduct  is  necessary 
for  our  welfare  and  happiness  in  this  world,  we  need 
no  dogmatic  foundation  for  it.  Men  will  see  that 
virtue  is  its  own  reward.  And  if  any  rule  of  con- 
duct in  the  Christian  code  is  not  based  upon  the 
actual  exigencies  of  life,  there  will  be  no  social 
consequences  if  we  disregard  it.  The  superstitions 
I  have  assailed  belong  to  this  latter  category. 

But  a  campaign  against  the  artificial  restriction 
of  the  birth-rate  has  recently  been  inaugurated 
on  what  are  thought  to  be  serious  social  grounds, 
and  this  leads  me  to  a  third  and  last  reform  which 
the  family  will  undergo.  I  refer  to  the  Eugenic 
movement.  Let  me  first  explain  why  this  hostility 
of  Eugenists  to  the  restriction  of  the  birth-rate  seems 
a  needless  and  illogical  complication  of  their  aims. 

This  hostility  is  usually  expressed  in  the  form  of  a 
fear  that  the  restriction  of  births  among  the  "  better 
class "  and  unrestricted  increase  of  the  "  lower 
class  "  must  lead  to  deterioration.  One  would  think 
that  the  proper  remedy  of  this  would  be  to  re- 
commend prudential  restriction  to  the  mass  of  the 
workers,  as  the  Malthusian  League  endeavours  to 
do.  It  is  a  strange  social  idealism  which  would 
urge  over-production  all  round,  with  its  train  of 
domestic  and  industrial  evils,  instead  of  urging 
restriction  all  round.  It  would  also  be  interesting 
to  learn  the  average  number  of  children  to  a  family 
among  these  zealous  Eugenists,  and  whether  they 
do  not  find  middle-class  professions  as  overcrowded 


IDOLS  OF  THE  HOME  175 

as  the  manual  industries  are.  At  all  events,  since 
it  is  now  impossible  to  induce  educated  mothers 
to  return  to  the  virtuous  and  exacting  industry 
of  their  Victorian  predecessors,  the  best  thing  would 
be  to  educate  the  masses  in  a  common-sense  view 
of  maternity  and  of  their  own  interest. 

It  will  suffice  here,  however,  to  deal  with  the  saner 
side  of  the  Eugenic  movement.  It  proposes  to 
eliminate  bad  human  stock  and  promote  the  mating 
of  good  stocks.  These  are  those  who  find  it  a  de- 
gradation to  introduce  "  the  methods  of  the  breeder  " 
into  human  affairs,  but  the  objection  is  merely  silly. 
The  methods  of  the  modern  breeder  are  an  expres- 
sion of  intelligence,  improving  on  nature ;  these 
old-fashioned  folk  would  have  us  disregard  the 
persuasion  of  intelligence  and  retain  the  crude 
methods  of  unintelligent  nature.  The  serious 
question  is :  Is  the  Eugenic  proposal  sound  and 
practicable  ? 

As  far  as  positive  Eugenics,  or  the  selection  of 
good  human  stocks  for  breeding,  is  concerned,  the 
recent  evolution  of  the  movement  seems  to  show 
that  no  firm  and  practicable  proposal  can  yet  be 
formulated.  The  truth  is  that  the  movement  is 
greatly  enfeebled  by  a  general  reliance  on  disputed 
theories  of  heredity.  Some  Eugenists  rely  on 
Weismann's  theory  :  some  on  the  Mendelist  theory. 
They  do  not  realise  that  scientific  men  are  by  no 
means  agreed  upon  these  theories,  and  it  is  a  serious 
mistake  to  build  on  either.  In  England  most  of 
our  biologists  are  Weismannists  (in  a  broad  sense), 


176  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

but  there  is  more  hostility  to  the  theory  in  Germany 
and  the  United  States,  and  both  theories  have  lately 
had  to  confront  grave  difficulties.  Any  Eugenic 
proposal  which  is  based  on  a  theory  of  heredity 
must  be  regarded  with  reserve.  The  dogmatic 
statements  of  Professor  Karl  Pearson,  for  instance, 
in  regard  to  the  impossibility  of  altering  by  education 
the  innate  qualities  of  a  child  are  entirely  un- 
warranted. Heredity  is  still  a  mystery  :  and  the 
relative  importance  of  heredity  and  environment 
(or  nature  and  nurture)  is  not  yet  determined. 

Detaching  the  element  of  theory,  we  have  a  plain 
proposal  to  eradicate  tainted  stocks  from  the  human 
garden  and  promote  the  growth  of  the  sounder. 
As  I  have  said,  the  positive  proposal  to  breed  has 
not  yet  been  put  before  us  in  a  practicable  or  dis- 
cussable form.  This  is  largely  because  Eugenists 
fear  to  alarm  the  public  by  pointing  out  how  it 
affects  the  position  of  marriage.  There  are,  how- 
ever, many  other  difficulties.  The  extraordinary 
diversity  among  children  of  the  same  parents 
warns  us  that  we  cannot  count  on  the  result  of 
mating  human  beings,  with  their  infinitely  more 
complex  nervous  systems,  as  we  can  count  on  the 
issue  of  mating  sheep  or  dogs.  The  mediocrity 
of  the  living  children  of  our  ablest  men  of  the  last 
generation,  even  when  the  mother  was  an  excellent 
mate,  is  another  circumstance  to  be  considered.  We 
do  not  yet  know  the  points  to  breed  for,  and  there 
is  no  constancy  of  result.  Eugenists  sometimes 
refer  to  the  physical  or  mental  superiority  of  one 


IDOLS  OF  THE  HOME  177 

class  of  children  over  another,  but  in  this  they  do 
not  attempt  to  distinguish  between  the  effect  of 
environment  and  the  natural  endowment.  Positive 
Eugenics  is  not  yet  beyond  the  stage  of  research. 
Such  research,  if  conducted  without  academic 
prejudice  (which  is  too  apparent  in  many  Eugenic 
papers),  is  of  very  great  service  ;  and,  if  ever  a  firm 
proposal  lies  before  us,  we  may  trust  that  rhetorical 
phrases  and  clerical  prejudices  will  not  be  allowed 
to  bar  the  way. 

In  the  case  of  negative  Eugenics  we  are  nearer 
agreement.  Here  again,  however,  research  is  not 
always  candid.  Inquiries  have  been  made  into  the 
lineage  of  American  criminals,  and  the  large  per- 
centage of  criminals  in  one  family  is  held  to  indicate 
a  tainted  stock  :  it  is  not  sufficiently  noticed  that 
they  all  lived  in  the  same  crime-breeding  environ- 
ment. Other  Eugenists  try  to  intimidate  us  with 
the  cry  that  lunacy  and  crime  are  increasing 
rapidly :  whereas  (as  I  showed  in  the  Hibbert 
Journal,  April  1912)  there  is  no  proved  increase  of 
lunacy  and  no  increase  of  crime,  in  proportion  to 
the  growth  of  population.  These  methods  bring 
discredit  on  the  Eugenic  proposals.  It  is,  however, 
now  agreed  that  certain  diseases,  including  certain 
forms  of  mental  disease,  are  transmissible,  and 
common-sense  suggests  that  we  should  prevent  their 
transmission.  It  is  well  to  bear  in  mind,  however, 
that  these  things  affect  only  a  fraction  of  the  com- 
munity. As  is  the  case  with  every  new  social 
proposal,  Eugenics  is  being  pressed  as  a  panacea ; 
13 


178  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

and  it  appeals  to  many  as  a  fascinating  method  of 
healing  our  social  maladies  without  touching  the 
present  distribution  of  wealth.  It  is  one  sub- 
sidiary remedy  among  the  hundred  which  modern 
civilisation  needs  to  apply.  By  all  means  let  us 
discover  what  "  tainted  stocks,"  if  any,  there  are 
amongst  us ;  and  let  us  have  the  elementary 
courage  and  intelligence  to  extinguish  them,  by 
the  isolation,  painless  destruction,  or  sterilisation 
of  their  representatives. 

The  future  of  the  family  seems  not  obscure. 
Malthusian  and  Eugenic  proposals  will  alter  much 
of  the  crudeness  and  stupidity  of  the  old  family 
ideal,  and  ease  of  divorce  will  remove  the  blight  it 
has  put  on  many  a  home.  Hundreds  of  thousands 
bless  marriage  with  gratitude  and  sincerity  :  tens 
of  thousands  curse  it  with  equal  sincerity.  Let 
there  be  liberty  and  life  for  all.  For  a  modern 
legislature  to  ignore  a  vast  amount  of  vice  and 
misery,  and  be  guided  by  the  ancient  formula  of  a 
celibate  priesthood,  is  one  of  the  most  lamentable 
features  of  our  civilisation.  And  the  unbiased 
social  student  may  look  without  concern  on  the 
growth  of  extra-matrimonial  love.  There  is  no 
interest  of  the  State  which  forbids  it,  nor  any  sound 
principle  of  morals.  The  woman  of  the  future  will 
be  her  own  mistress,  responsible  neither  to  priest 
nor  moralist  in  this  respect.  If  she  chooses,  she 
will  marry  ;  but  she  will  not  sacrifice  half  the  joy 
of  life  because  she  cannot,  or  does  not  choose  to, 
venture  upon  the  experiment  of  domestic  intimacy. 


CHAPTER   VII 

THE   FUTURE   OF   WOMAN 

THE  old  tradition  of  the  family  is  intimately  con- 
nected with  the  old  ideal  of  womanhood,  and  this 
in  turn  is  summoned  to  the  bar  of  modern  criticism. 
A  substantial  change  in  the  position  of  woman  seems 
so  revolutionary  a  disturbance,  since  it  directly 
affects  half  the  race  and  must  very  seriously  affect 
the  home  and  the  State,  that  our  Conservatives 
employ  against  the  proposal  the  whole  arsenal  of 
controversial  rhetoric.  We  hear  of  the  wisdom  of 
the  race — as  if  the  race  did  not  grow  wiser  as  it 
grows  older — and  the  thin  end  of  the  wedge.  We  are 
reminded  that  the  ancient  civilisations  always  came 
to  an  end  when  their  women  rebelled  against  their 
natural  position.  We  have  private  appeals  to  our 
sensuous  feelings  and  our  instincts  of  proprietor- 
ship, and  open  appeals  to  the  ascetic  doctrine  of 
the  Pauline  Epistles.  We  have  history  put  before 
us,  as  usual,  in  chosen  fragments,  and  on  the  strength 
of  these  detached  bits  of  learning  we  hear  impressive 
sermons  on  the  "  laws  "  of  history  and  of  nature. 
The  appeal  to  history,  which  men  like  Dr.  Emil 

Reich    have    so   gravely  abused,  is   in    this  case 

179 


i8o  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

singularly  unfortunate.  In  most  cases  the  candid 
student  of  history  finds  some  ancient  abuse  or 
irrational  tradition  making  its  way  from  one  civil- 
isation to  another,  and  finds  it  natural  that  our 
more  critical  and  independent  generation  should  at 
length  seek  to  dethrone  it.  But  in  the  case  of  woman 
the  Conservative  has  not  even  "  the  wisdom  of  the 
race  "  to  appeal  to.  Her  position  in  the  past  has 
varied  greatly,  but  it  is  very  far  from  true  that  she 
had  always  occupied  that  state  of  subjection  in 
which  our  Victorian  reformers  found  her.  I  have 
elsewhere  (Woman  in  Political  Evolution)  sur- 
veyed the  full  story  of  woman's  development,  and 
will  here  be  content  with  a  summary  view  which 
makes  the  Feminist  movement  of  our  time  in- 
telligible. 

During  the  greater  part  of  the  history  of  civilisa- 
tion, in  the  Egyptian  and  Mesopotamian  empires, 
woman  had  a  considerable  measure  of  freedom  and 
respect.  When  the  Greeks  and  Romans  entered 
the  stage,  they  brought  with  them  a  different  tradi- 
tion in  regard  to  woman,  but  as  soon  as  they  reached 
the  height  of  their  cultural  development,  their 
women  (and  many  of  their  men)  rebelled  against 
this  tradition.  The  civilisation  of  Greece  was 
extinguished  so  speedily  that  the  women  of  Athens, 
aided  by  so  eminent  a  thinker  as  Plato,  had  not  time 
to  win  their  emancipation  ;  but  the  Roman  women 
did  succeed  in  lifting  themselves  from  their  position 
of  subjection.  In  the  meantime,  however,  the 
political  and  religious  development  of  Europe  led 


THE  FUTURE  OF  WOMAN  181 

to  the  reappearance  of  the  barbaric  tradition  in  a 
new  form.  The  Christian  leaders  had  in  their 
sacred  documents  the  social  code  of  a  rude  Semitic 
tribe,  the  Jews,  which  was  sternly  emphasised  by 
St.  Paul,  and  they  brooded  darkly  over  the  position 
of  woman.  Tertullian  fiercely  reminded  Christians 
that,  but  for  woman,  the  race  would  never  have 
been  damned.  Ambrose  ingeniously  reflected  that 
Eve  was  made  out  of  a  mere  rib,  not  out  of  the  brain, 
of  Adam.  Augustine  regarded  woman  as  an  un- 
pleasant institution  created  by  Providence  for  the 
relief  of  weak-willed  males  and  for  the  maintenance 
of  the  race.  Jerome  frowned  heavily  on  the  Roman 
woman's  claim  of  emancipation.  This  quaint  mix- 
ture of  Jewish  contempt  and  ascetic  dread  was 
imposed  on  Europe  by  the  triumphant  priesthood, 
educated  mainly  in  the  opinions  of  "  the  Fathers," 
and  woman  sank  again  to  a  position  of  inferiority 
and  subjection. 

Women  writers  of  many  countries  have  written 
this  story  of  the  degradation  of  their  sex  in  Christian 
Europe,  and  one  can  only  admire  the  splendid 
audacity  with  which  Bishop  Welldon  assures  women 
that  Jesus  Christ  (who  never  uttered  a  protest 
against  the  Jewish  conception  or  a  warning  against 
the  coming  abuse  of  it)  was  "  the  first  to  respect 
them,"  or  the  Bishop  of  London  describes  Chris- 
tianity as  "  woman's  best  friend,"  or  Bishop  Diggle 
represents  the  Christian  as  an  advance  on  the 
Roman  attitude.  Our  clergy  are  distinguished  for 
the  facility  with  which  they  make  historical  state- 


182  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

ments  without  giving  us  any  serious  evidence  of  a 
command  of  history  ;  they  have  the  advantage  of 
being  able  to  assure  their  followers  that  it  is  a 
"  sin  "  to  read  more  accurate  and  less  orthodox 
experts. 

The  historical  truth  is  that  the  nineteenth  century 
found  woman  in  a  position  far  lower  than  that  she 
had  occupied  at  Rome  seventeen  centuries  before 
— far  lower,  indeed,  than  she  had  occupied  during 
(except  for  two  brief  periods)  the  many  thousands 
of  years  of  the  history  of  civilisation.  It  was  quite 
inevitable  that  a  movement  for  her  emancipation 
and  uplifting  should  find  a  place  among  the  great 
reforms  initiated  in  the  last  century.  To  conceive 
this  movement  as  a  semi-hysterical  rebellion  against 
the  settled  usage  of  the  race  is  merely  to  betray  a 
gross  ignorance  of  history.  Recent  experience  has 
taught  us  that  there  is  a  great  deal  in  the  settled 
usage  of  the  race  to  rebel  against ;  but  it  is  false 
that  in  this  case  we  are  doing  so.  The  undisputed 
historical  truth  is  that  woman  had  been  compara- 
tively free  and  respected  during  the  greater  part  of 
the  civilised  period :  that,  when  the  early  civilisa- 
tions of  Greece  and  Rome  had  placed  her  in  subjec- 
tion for  a  few  centuries,  she,  at  the  beginning  of 
the  Christian  era,  rebelled  and  won  her  emancipa- 
tion :  and  that  the  later  period  of  subjection  was 
merely  due  to  the  incorporation  in  the  Christian 
religion  of  the  primitive  and  crude  ideal  of  a  poly- 
gamous Arab  tribe.  Against  this  intolerable  super- 
stition modern  civilisation  has  rebelled,  and  we  are 


THE  FUTURE  OF  WOMAN  183 

in  the  midst  of  a  far  deeper  discussion  of  woman's 
nature  and  position  than  ever  occurred  before. 

The  discussion  is  passing  through  the  three  phases 
which  are  customary  in  these  controversies.  At 
first  the  clergy  and  the  Conservative  quoted  the 
Bible  and  the  Fathers.  Then,  when  women  began 
to  show  that  they  were  disposed  to  examine  a 
little  more  closely  the  authority  of  documents  which 
taught  so  obvious  an  injustice,  it  was  pleaded  that 
in  this  case  the  religious  view  coincided  with 
"  sound  "  science  and  sociology.  In  that  phase  we 
are  to-day,  discussing  claims  that  "  nature  "  and 
our  social  interest  are  on  the  side  of  the  old  ideal. 
In  a  few  more  decades,  when  the  battle  is  won,  the 
Bishop  of  London  of  the  time  will  be  demonstrating 
that  the  reform  was  anticipated  by  the  Fathers 
sixteen  hundred  years  ago  and  was  contained,  in 
germ,  in  the  New  Testament. 

At  present  the  controversy  about  woman's 
position  turns  largely  on  the  question  of  her 
"  nature,"  and  the  literature  of  the  subject  is  pro- 
digious. Woman  has  different  organs  and  functions 
than  those  of  man,  and  it  is  natural  to  suppose  that 
they  will  give  her  a  different  character.  Here  is 
the  opportunity  of  the  male  :  he  has  a  solid  scientific 
fact  to  build  upon. 

He  sagely  examines  the  intellectual  life  of  woman 
and  pronounces  it  inferior  to  that  of  man  :  he 
measures  her  brain  and  finds  it  smaller  than  that 
of  man,  and  thus  discovers  the  scientific  basis  of 
her  inferiority  ;  and  he  never  reflects  that,  since  he, 


184  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

on  the  whole,  forbade  her  to  develop  her  brain  and 
intelligence  during  the  fifteen  centuries  of  Christian 
domination,  it  may  be  that  her  brain  is  not  working 
with  all  the  energy  of  which  it  is  capable.  He  lays 
down  for  this  dependent  creature  a  certain  code  of 
deportment  and  behaviour,  and,  when  it  has  en- 
feebled her,  he  discourses  on  her  inferior  muscular 
development :  if  any  girls  or  women  defiantly 
exercise  their  muscles  and  become  strong,  he  calls 
them  "  unwomanly  "  and  happily  exceptional.  He 
observes  that  woman  is  more  emotional  than  man  ; 
and,  of  course,  he  does  not  ask  physiologists  whether 
this  may  be  merely,  or  mainly,  the  effect  (as  it  is) 
of  the  muscular  and  intellectual  restrictions  he  has 
placed  on  her.  He  bids  her  develop  pretty  curves 
on  her  body  for  his  entertainment,  and  never  thinks 
about  the  physiological  and  psychological  effect  of 
the  dead  mass  of  fat  and  the  flabby  muscles.  He 
kindly  undertakes  (for  a  consideration)  the  care  of 
this  weaker  companion,  and,  when  she  begins  to 
prove  that  she  can  fend  for  herself,  he  severely 
censures  her  for  intruding  on  his  labour-market. 
He  learns  from  novelists  that  she  has  a  peculiar 
power  of  "  intuition  "  (in  fiction),  and  a  greater 
fineness  of  perception  than  man  (which  exact  experi- 
ment in  America  has  shown  to  be  untrue),  and  is 
altogether  a  deep  and  unfathomable  being.  And 
he  then,  in  virtue  of  his  superior  understanding  of 
her  "  mysterious  "  nature,  proceeds  to  dictate  to 
her  about  her  sphere  and  her  capacities. 

The    absurdities    and    contradictions    of    male 


THE  FUTURE  OF  WOMAN  185 

writers  on  women,  supported  by  some  women 
writers,  during  the  last  two  hundred  years,  would 
fill  a  volume.  They  were  more  or  less  intelligible, 
and  certainly  entertaining,  in  the  earlier  part  of 
the  modern  period,  but  at  a  time  when  we  have 
scientific  and  historical  information  to  guide  us 
they  are  neither  intelligent  nor  amusing.  We  now 
know  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  an  unchangeable 
nature  of  a  living  organism.  Structure  and  function 
vary  with  use  and  environment,  whatever  theory 
of  heredity  one  follows.  Forbid  the  brain  and 
muscles  to  function  for  some  centuries,  and  they 
will  become  feebler :  restore  their  activity  and 
they  will  return  to  strength.  Shut  a  woman  out  of 
politics  or  business  or  war,  and  she  will  lose  her 
capacity  for  it :  reintroduce  her  to  it,  and  her 
faculties  are  sharpened.  When  the  kings  of  Dahomi 
formed  a  regiment  of  women  in  their  army,  the 
women  were  found  to  be  more  deadly  fighters  than 
the  men,  and  they  drank  as  heavily. 

As  far  as  the  political  phase  of  the  modern 
Feminist  struggle  is  concerned,  the  application 
of  these  principles  is  clear  enough.  When  states- 
men can  find  no  better  argument  against  the  en- 
franchisement of  women  than  the  fact  that  (like 
the  politicians  themselves)  they  do  no  military 
service,  and  when  scientific  men  plead  only  their 
periodical  perturbations  and  their  "  change  of 
life,"  it  is  time  to  cease  arguing.  Even  in  countries 
which  have  a  system  of  conscription  it  has  never 
been  proposed  that  those  who  are  exempt  from 


186  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

service  should  not  have  a  vote.  In  a  country  like 
England  the  objection  is  supremely  foolish :  it 
reminds  one  of  Plato's  ironical  argument,  in  this 
connection,  that  men  who  are  bald  should  not  be 
allowed  to  make  shoes.  As  to  the  comparative 
disturbance  of  judgment  which  a  certain  proportion 
of  women  suffer  at  certain  periods,  it  is  preposterous 
to  suppose  that  this  does  not  unfit  them  for  more 
important  work,  but  does  unfit  them  for  casting  a 
vote  once  in  seven  years.  Is  it  suggested  that  the 
Conservative  matron  will,  if  an  election  fall  in  her 
period  of  nervous  instability,  march  in  a  frenzy 
to  the  poll  and  vote  for  Keir  Hardie  ?  Even  the 
more  or  less  intoxicated  male  voter  does  not  over- 
rule a  settled  conviction  so  easily.  But  it  is  waste 
of  time  to  discuss  such  matters.  A  simple  investi- 
gation of  years  of  experience  in  America  and 
Australasia  is  more  valuable  than  the  pedantic 
declarations  of  one  or  two  scientific  men.  Even 
Conservative  Australians  smiled  when  I  asked  them 
if  the  consequences  of  female  enfranchisement, 
as  they  are  darkly  foreboded  by  serious  people 
in  England,  had  been  observed  in  their  Common- 
wealth. 

The  anti-suffrage  campaign  has  been  the  death- 
blow of  the  prejudice  against  the  enfranchisement 
of  women.  It  has  shown  the  complete  futility  of  the 
Conservative  position.  Women  would  probably 
have  the  vote  in  England  to-day  if  a  section  of 
those  who  demand  it  had  not  taken  a  false  path. 
The  end,  however  sacred,  does  not  justify  criminal 


THE  FUTURE  OF  WOMAN  187 

means ;  nor  can  any  serious  statesman  yield  to 
violence  and  intimidation.  Yet  there  is  nothing 
in  this  temporary  aberration  to  strengthen  the 
anti-Feminist  position.  It  was  an  error  of  judgment 
and  a  misreading  of  history.  I  am  well  acquainted 
with  many  of  the  ladies  who  did  these  regrettable 
things,  and  I  know  that  the  suggestion  of  "  hysteria" 
is  an  insult.  It  is,  however,  useless  to  dicuss  this 
question  further.  Women  will  be  enfranchised  in 
England  within  a  few  years,  and  in  all  civilised 
nations  within  a  quarter  of  a  century. 

Then  will  begin  the  campaign  for  the  right  to  sit 
in  Parliament,  even  in  the  Ministry.  From  sheer 
force  of  prejudice  the  great  majority  of  the  en- 
franchised women  will  resist  this  further  claim,  and 
the  long  story  of  education  and  agitation  will  be 
repeated.  This  is  the  outcome  of  our  habit  of 
persistently  compromising  with  false  traditions 
instead  of  frankly  discarding  them.  The  im- 
mortal jokes  about  women  will  be  retailed  in  the 
House  of  Commons  by  our  legislators ;  the  same 
dark  warnings  will  come  from  scientific  Cassandras 
who  have  felt  social  influence ;  the  same  tragic 
whispers  about  "  what  every  woman  knows  "  will 
be  heard  in  drawing-rooms.  Then,  about  the  year 
1930,  we  will  discover  that  woman  is  really  capable 
of  undertaking  the  not  very  exacting  duties  of  the 
average  Member  of  Parliament, — if  we  have  not  in 
the  meantime  abolished  these  aimless  long  debates 
on  subjects  which  all  approach  with  a  fixed  con- 
viction,— and  that  it  may  not  be  impossible  to  find  a 


188  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

woman  with  the  capacity  of  Mr.  Reginald  M'Kenna 
or  Lord  Gladstone  or  Mr.  Walter  Long.  Our  Mrs. 
Humphry  Wards  will  be  the  first  to  compete  for  the 
office. 

I  turn  to  the  more  serious  question  of  the  economic 
enfranchisement  of  women.  On  this  side  of  the 
Feminist  movement  our  views  are  hardly  less  hazy 
than  in  regard  to  politics.  The  middle-class,  being 
the  brain  as  well  as  the  backbone  of  England,  is 
chiefly  responsible  for  the  maxim  that  woman's 
place  is  the  home  ;  but  the  middle-class  is  also  the 
great  employer  of  labour,  and  it  has  found  that 
female  labour  is  cheaper  than  male,  and  has  there- 
fore concluded  that  woman's  proper  place  is  the 
office  or  the  workshop.  More  than  a  fourth  of  the 
girls  and  women  of  England  work  outside  the  home. 
This  material  incentive  to  right  views  is,  however, 
limited  in  its  action.  When  the  middle-class 
woman  in  turn  seeks  economic  independence,  she 
is  received  with  coldness,  if  not  derision.  Women 
may  be  clerks,  teachers,  actresses,  telegraphists, 
hosiery-makers,  etc.,  but  they  ought  not  to  aspire 
to  be  doctors,  lawyers,  or  stockbrokers.  If  they 
ask  the  reason,  they  hear  an  inconsistent  jumble  of 
statements.  In  the  first  place,  of  course,  they  are 
not  clever  enough  ;  in  the  second  place,  however, 
they  are  likely  to  be  so  far  successful  that  they  would 
lessen  the  available  employment  of  men. 

Certainly  in  such  a  haphazard  industrial  world 
as  ours  the  accession  of  a  fresh  army  of  workers  will 
cause,  and  is  causing,  confusion.  On  the  laissez- 


THE  FUTURE  OF  WOMAN  189 

faire  principle  this  overcrowding  of  the  market  is 
good  ;  it  gives  a  greater  play  to  selection  and 
promotes  efficiency.  But  we  have,  as  I  said,  forced 
laissez-faire  to  compromise  with  decency.  We 
prefer  a  little  overcrowding,  but  not  too  much. 
The  opening  of  the  doors  of  all  the  professions  to 
woman  means  a  worse  overcrowding  than  ever  in 
the  medical  and  legal  worlds,  and  we  naturally 
hesitate. 

Naturally,  but  not  justly  or  logically.  Between 
logic  and  justice  the  modern  man  pleads  that  he  is 
distracted,  and  he  asks  time  for  reconstruction  ; 
asks,  in  other  words,  that  we  should  leave  the 
trouble  to  another  generation.  This  shrinking 
from  trouble  is  of  no  avail.  We  have  sanctioned 
the  principle  of  female  industry  outside  the  home — 
millions  of  women  are  so  employed  in  England 
to-day — and  we  have  absolutely  no  ground  to  limit 
it  except  the  natural  disability  of  woman  or  the 
social  need  for  her  to  undertake  other  functions. 
Of  her  natural  disability  little  need  be  said  here. 
We  have  had,  in  most  countries,  decades  of  ex- 
perience of  the  employment  of  women  in  many 
industries — teaching,  nursing,  journalism,  factory- 
work,  art,  theatre,  post-office,  type-writing,  shop- 
work,  and  so  on.  What  proportion  of  complaint 
to  the  number  of  workers  is  there  that  their  periodical 
functions  make  them  unfit  for  employment  ?  We 
do  not  need  learned  experts  on  gynecology  to  tell 
us  of  the  acute  and  exceptional  cases  which  have 
come  under  their  observation.  The  scientific  and 


igo  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

practical  procedure  is  to  make  a  general  inquiry 
into  the  net  result  of  our  employment  of  millions 
of  girls  and  women.  Most  of  us  would  await  such 
a  report  with  confidence.  As  long  as  the  wages  of 
women  are  lower  than  those  of  men,  we  hear  very 
little  complaint ;  nor  do  we  find  the  work  of  our 
schools  or  the  play  of  our  theatres  very  much  in- 
terrupted by  peculiarly  feminine  weaknesses.  Of 
late  years  women  have  shown  that  they  are  equally 
qualified  to  be  dentists,  doctors,  chartered  account- 
ants, etc.  Common-sense  would  persuade  us,  if 
we  would  find  the  real  limits  oi  woman's  capacity, 
to  open  to  her  all  the  doors  of  the  world  of  work 
and  learn  it  by  experience. 

One  must  give  more  serious  attention  to  the 
claim  that  this  economic  enfranchisement  of  women 
will  tend  to  lessen  maternity,  and  will  therefore 
endanger  our  social  interests.  This  question  of  the 
birth-rate  is,  in  fact,  very  important  from  many 
points  of  view,  and  it  is  extremely  advisable  to 
have  a  clear  and  reasoned  grasp  of  it.  Many  people 
are  at  once  alarmed  if  it  is  shown  that  a  practice 
will  tend  to  lessen  the  birth-rate.  They  rarely 
examine  with  critical  attention  the  reasons  which 
would  be  alleged  by  those  who  maintain  that  a 
lowering  of  the  birth-rate  is  a  social  menace. 

But  one  needs  no  lengthy  reflection  to  discover 
that  at  the  root  of  all  this  clamour  for  maintaining 
or  increasing  the  birth-rate  we  have  only  military 
requirements.  Some,  indeed,  urge  that  a  nation 
needs  as  many  soldiers  as  possible  for  her  industrial 


THE  FUTURE  OF  WOMAN  191 

army  as  well  as  for  her  military  forces  ;  but,  seeing 
that  each  nation  already  has  more  than  she  can 
employ,  we  are  not  impressed  by  this  phrase.  It 
is  not  volume  of  production,  or  gross  largeness  of 
revenue,  which  makes  a  nation  great.  It  is  the 
proportion  of  her  revenue  to  her  population,  and 
in  that  respect  some  of  the  smallest  States  are  the 
most  happily  situated.  The  need  of  a  large  army 
alone  justifies  complaints  about  a  falling  birth- 
rate, and  it  is  monstrous  that  we  should  lay  this 
strain  on  parents  merely  in  order  to  produce  "  fodder 
for  cannon."  The  actual  need  of  each  country, 
as  long  as  the  military  system  lasts,  must,  of  course, 
be  met,  but — apart  from  the  hope  that  we  will 
soon  cast  off  the  greater  part  of  this  military  burden 
— two  circumstances  show  that  we  have  not  here  a 
sound  and  permanent  social  need.  The  birth-rate 
is  falling  in  all  civilised  countries,  and  will  eventually 
reach  a  common  low  level  ;  and  the  war  has  shown 
us  that  a  nation  with  a  reduced  population  may, 
like  any  nation  with  a  small  population,  find  com- 
pensation for  its  weakness  in  alliances. 

The  truth  is  that  the  premature  advance  of 
France  in  restricting  its  birth-rate  has  led  to  a 
general  fallacy.  France  exposed  itself  to  a  par- 
ticular danger  in  face  of  Germany,  and  this  special 
weakness  of  France  was  converted  into  the  general 
statement  that  any  nation  which  reduces  its  birth- 
rate is  in  danger.  Not  only  is  the  general  statement 
untrue,  but  the  particular  case  of  France  is  very 
carelessly  conceived.  After  1871  the  German 


192  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

Empire  had  such  an  advantage  in  population  over 
France,  and  (until  1895)  so  much  less  need  of  main- 
taining a  fleet,  that  even  a  full  birth-rate  would 
not  have  equipped  France  confidently  for  a  combat. 
In  any  case,  we  come  back  always  to  military  needs, 
and  we  may  trust  that  these  will  not  long  impose 
their  terrible  strain  on  civilisation.  There  is, 
apart  from  them,  no  reason  why  the  birth-rate 
should  not  sink  in  every  country  to  the  level  of 
the  death-rate,  and  in  many  countries  even  lower. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  superficial  folk  who  cry 
for  heavy  maternity  and  full  cradles  overlook  a 
very  important  social  fact.  I  am  thinking  chiefly 
of  the  men  and  women  who  denounce  in  principle 
the  practice  of  restricting  births.  Not  only  do 
they  ignore  the  overcrowding  of  our  trades  and 
professions, — and  they  are  usually  amongst  the  most 
reluctant  to  organise  them, — but  they  fail  to  notice 
that  the  increasing  application  of  science  and  humane 
sentiment  to  our  modes  of  living  threatens  the  earth, 
as  a  whole,  with  enormous  over-population,  unless 
the  birth-rate  be  checked.  The  population  of 
England  has  increased  nearly  fourfold  in  the 
past  hundred  years,  whereas  it  had  little  more  than 
doubled  in  the  previous  two  hundred  years.  The 
factors  which  are  responsible  for  this  vast  modern 
increase  are  becoming  more  active  every  decade, 
and  are  spreading  over  the  world.  How  will  the 
population  of  Europe  and  Asia  stand  when  they 
are  fully  applied  in  Russia,  China,  and  India  ? 
Within  twenty  years  the  United  States,  according 


THE  FUTURE  OF  WOMAN  193 

to  its  agricultural  experts,  will  have  as  large  a 
population  as  it  can  support,  and  we  have  already 
seen  Germany  very  largely  thrust  into  war  because 
of  its  superabundant  population.  The  future  is 
full  of  peril  and  misery  if  we  continue  to  allow  this 
military  demand  for  men  to  masquerade  as  a  sound 
and  permanent  human  need.  The  birth-rate  must 
be  checked. 

We  must  therefore  refuse  to  allow  the  path  of 
reform  to  be  obstructed  by  either  the  priest  or  the 
drill-sergeant.  If  ever  a  time  comes  when  some 
real  interest  of  the  race  is  endangered  by  too  low  a 
birth-rate,  we  may  trust  the  race  to  see  to  it.  Con- 
servatives often  imagine  that  those  who  would 
reform  life  on  common-sense  lines  are  devoid  of 
sentiment.  They  confuse  sentiment  and  senti- 
mentality, which  is  sentiment  out  of  accord  with 
reason.  The  man  of  the  future  will  be,  in  my 
judgment,  not  less,  but  more  emotional  than  the 
man  of  to-day ;  but  he  will  not  allow  ancient  pre- 
judices and  mere  phrases  to  have  the  unchecked 
support  of  his  feelings.  It  will  not  be  enough  to 
tell  him  that  divorce  is  increasing,  or  the  birth-rate 
falling,  or  respect  for  the  clergy  deteriorating.  He 
will  ask  the  precise  value  in  social  terms  of  your 
bogy.  At  present  we  have,  on  broad  social  grounds, 
much  to  gain  and  nothing  to  lose  by  a  fall  of  the 
birth-rate.  Indeed,  the  prospect  of  a  fall  is,  as 
far  as  this  economic  development  alone  is  con- 
cerned, much  exaggerated.  Millions  of  employed 
women  have,  and  will  continue  to  have,  children. 


194  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

Under  our  present  system  of  industry  this  has 
undoubtedly  certain  risks  and  burdens  ;  under  the 
organised  system  of  employment  for  which  I  plead 
it  will  be  possible  to  adjust  employment  to  maternal 
functions. 

And  this  brings  me  to  the  cardinal  issue  of  the 
whole  controversy :  the  economic  position  of  the 
married  woman  or  the  mother.  Let  us  face  this 
graver  position  quite  candidly.  The  industrial  dis- 
organisation will  right  itself  in  the  course  of  time. 
The  middle-class  father  of  our  time  whose  daughter 
does  a  certain  amount  of  work,  not  in  order  to 
relieve  his  pocket,  but  in  order  to  buy  additional 
luxuries  for  herself,  has  assuredly  a  grievance. 
She  takes  part  of  a  man's  work  and  pay,  yet  leaves 
on  him  the  old  burden  of  maintenance.  She  makes 
matters  worse  by  accepting  a  low  wage,  because  she 
is  not  self-maintaining.  I  am  assuming  that  women 
will  become  independent  economic  units,  and  that 
the  rate  of  payment  will  be — equal  wage  for  equal 
service. 

But  the  position  of  the  married  woman,  or  of 
the  independent  woman  who  undertakes  maternal 
functions,  forms  a  special  and  difficult  problem, 
which  is  pressing  upon  us  more  heavily  every 
decade.  There  is  spreading  rapidly  through  the 
civilised  world  a  feeling  of  rebellion  against  the 
economic  dependence  of  wife  or  husband.  No 
Conservative  argumentation,  no  censure  of  new 
ideas,  no  religious  preaching  of  self-sacrifice  for  a 
doubtful  reward  in  heaven,  will  relieve  us  of  this 


THE  FUTURE  OF  WOMAN  195 

difficulty.  Educated  women — statistics  of  college- 
taught  women  are  available — are  increasingly  re- 
belling against  the  subjection  or  inferiority  which 
this  economic  dependence  seems  to  entail.  It  is 
the  chief  motive  of  the  general  demand  for  economic 
independence  (or  an  independent  place  in  the 
industrial  world)  and  has  much  to  do  with  the  revolt 
against  marriage  itself.  Whether  or  no  we  adopt 
new  ideals  of  social  life,  this  revolt  will  spread. 

One  very  quickly  sees  that  it  is  not  so  much 
marriage  as  the  traditional  practice  of  husbands 
which  is  chiefly  responsible  for  the  revolt.  The 
practice  varies  considerably,  but,  apart  from  a 
small  class  in  which  the  wife  brings  with  her  or 
earns  an  independent  income,  it  is  still  generally 
true  to  say  that  the  wife  receives  what  the  husband 
chooses  to  give.  Now  it  is  plain  that  this  difficulty 
may  be  met  in  a  very  large  proportion  of  cases  by 
an  equitable  voluntary  agreement.  Various  domestic 
experiments  of  the  kind  are  being  tried,  and  a 
comparison  of  experiences  would  be  useful.  Many 
people  are  agreed  in  the  just  view  that,  since  the 
wife  works  at  home  while  the  husband  works 
abroad,  all  income  is  joint  income.  A  common 
fund,  accessible  to  both,  is  assigned  for  household 
and  saving,  and  an  equal  and  fixed  personal  share 
is  taken  by  each  from  the  income  or  wage.  Such 
an  arrangement  is  quite  easily  practised  by  middle- 
class  people,  and  it  seems  to  me  to  remove  every 
legitimate  suspicion  of  ignominy  from  the  wife's 
position. 


196  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

When  unmarried  women  have  secured  economic 
independence  they  will  be  able  to  demand  some 
such  arrangement  before  marrying.  The  kind  of 
"  modesty  "  which  would  prevent  a  woman  from 
having  an  understanding  before  marriage  in  regard 
to  income  and  children  is  a  very  costly  and  foolish 
luxury.  Let  them  insist  that  the  ritual  words, 
"  With  all  my  worldly  goods  I  thee  endow,"  must 
mean  something  more  than  that  they  shall  have 
chocolates  and  pretty  dresses  if  they  humour  the 
moods  of  a  husband.  Our  law,  which  secures  for  a 
wife  full  maintenance  when  she  has  ceased  to  do  any 
work  for  it  (after  a  separation),  but  has  no  interest 
in  her  when  she  is  working  dutifully  for  twelve  or 
fourteen  hours  a  day,  is  infinitely  more  dangerous 
to  marriage  than  are  the  puritan  assaults  of  Mr. 
G.  B.  Shaw.  In  any  case,  a  voluntary  agreement 
that  a  wife  has  access  to  the  bank  and  cash-box, 
and  a  right  to  take  for  personal  use  the  same  sum 
as  her  husband,  removes  all  need  of  asking  money 
from  a  husband  (which  is  justly  odious  to  many 
women),  and  makes  a  wife  economically  independent 
in  any  important  sense  of  the  word. 

But  it  would  be  futile  to  hope  eit'rer  that  the 
majority  of  men  will  thus  surrender  their  privileged 
position,  or  that  all  women  will  recognise  even  such 
an  arrangement  as  economic  independence.  A 
grave  conflict  undoubtedly  lies  before  us,  and 
there  will  be  an  increasing  demand  for  the  State- 
endowment  of  wifehood,  or  at  least  of  motherhood. 
The  suffrage  movement  has  naturally  inflamed  the 


THE  FUTURE  OF  WOMAN  197 

difficulty  by  educating  women  in  a  sense  of  grievance. 
Indeed,  it  seems  to  many  of  us  that  Feminist  writers 
have  at  times  gone  far  beyond  legitimate  grievances 
and  set  up  fictitious  and  mischievous  standards. 
This  is  a  very  common  development  of  propagandist 
movements  which  meet  with  a  prolonged  resistance. 
The  first  generation  of  agitators  says  the  obvious 
and  just  things  in  regard  to  the  reform  :  the  next 
generation  must  revive  the  jaded  sentiment  with 
stimulating  novelties  and  exaggerations.  It  seems 
to  me  one  of  these  morbid  exaggerations  to  speak 
of  marriage  as  "  legalised  prostitution  "  ;  to  imagine 
that  one  is  "  selling  one's  body  "  to  a  man,  or  re- 
ceiving payment  for  ministering  to  his  "  lust." 
One  Feminist  writer  of  some  influence,  and  some 
pretension  to  knowledge  of  science,  has  actually 
compared  the  human  male  very  unfavourably  with 
all  other  male  animals  in  the  world,  on  the  ground 
that  the  latter  are  content  with  a  restricted  period 
of  "rut"! 

This  mixture  of  ancient  Puritanism  and  advanced 
sociology  is  as  incongruous  as  it  is  mischievous. 
A  woman  who  sincerely  regards  sex-pleasure  in  the 
way  generally  implied  by  the  use  of  the  word  "  lust  " 
— a  woman  who  has  not  the  same  healthy  desire  of 
it  as  her  partner — has  no  right  to  marry :  except, 
of  course,  to  marry  a  man  with  similarly  antique 
views.  A  wife  of  such  a  kind  may  very  well  consider 
that  she  is  being  "  paid  "  to  surrender  her  body. 
The  normal  wife  is  not  paid  for  that  at  all.  She  is 
paid — if  there  is  any  paying — to  care  for  the  home 


ig8  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

and  her  children :  which  is  as  well  earned  a  payment 
as  the  fee  of  a  lawyer.  And  from  the  sentimental 
point  of  view  it  does  not  make  a  particle  of  difference 
whether  she  is  paid  out  of  her  husband's  income  or 
out  of  the  coffers  of  the  State.  She  would  still 
"  sell  her  body,"  if  there  is  any  selling  of  body. 
But  there  is  not.  Maternity  and  sex-pleasure  are 
entirely  different  matters. 

I  am  deliberately  trying  to  undermine  the  plea 
for  the  endowment  of  motherhood,  because  the 
proposal  seems  to  me  to  present  very  grave  diffi- 
culties which  even  so  penetrating  a  sociologist  as 
Mr.  H.  G.  Wells  has,  apparently,  not  appreciated. 
Mr.  Wells  is,  of  course,  in  a  very  different  position 
from  the  Feminist  writers  who  advocate  the  complete 
endowment  or  maintenance  of  wives  or  mothers 
by  the  State.  Such  a  scheme  would  cost  about 
£300,000,000  a  year,  and  need  not  be  discussed. 
Mr.  Wells  suggests  rather  a  modest  contribution 
per  child  born  (leaving  out,  I  assume,  wealthier 
mothers)  ;  a  practicable  scheme,  with  much  in  its 
favour.  Yet  it  seems  to  me  that  such  endowment 
would  mean  that  we  would  encourage  the  weakest 
in  will,  the  most  sensual,  the  least  intelligent  and 
least  provident  of  our  people,  to  breed.  Intelligent 
women  would  not  abandon  the  practice  of  restricting 
births  because  the  State  offered  them  a  few  shillings 
per  child.  The  better  class — whether  of  manual  or 
professional  workers — would  have  to  pay  for  the 
undesirable  fertility  of  the  worst  class.  We  are 
just  beginning  to  realise  that  quality  of  children 


THE  FUTURE  OF  WOMAN  199 

is  more  precious  than  quantity,  and  the  endowment 
of  motherhood  would  not  encourage  this  saner 
view.  The  kind  of  brute  who  is  at  present  restrained 
by  the  paternity-law  would  be  restrained  no  longer  : 
the  rougher  type  of  husband — a  very  numerous 
type — would  pay  so  much  less  to  his  wife  when  he 
found  the  State  contributing  (either  in  cash  or  kind) 
to  her :  the  man  who  at  present  practises  restric- 
tion, not  out  of  consideration  for  his  wife  and 
family,  but  to  have  more  shillings  for  himself,  would 
cease  to  practise  it,  and  lay  a  greater  burden  on 
his  wife. 

But,  while  there  seem  to  be  such  grave  objections 
to  the  endowment  of  motherhood  that  we  do  better 
to  strengthen  women  in  their  individual  demand  of 
justice,  we  must  remember  that  the  wife  will  have 
the  advantage  of  other  changes  in  the  home. 
Domestic  service  is  becoming  more  and  more  re- 
pugnant to  girls,  and  some  form  of  co-operative  and 
efficient  housekeeping,  with  common  servants  and 
restaurant,  will  be  adopted.  Some  day  a  photo- 
graph of  a  twentieth-century  suburb  will  provoke 
a  smile.  Perhaps  the  museum  of  the  future  will  set 
up  models  of  our  establishments,  just  as  we  set  up 
in  our  ethnographical  galleries  models  of  a  Kaffir 
or  a  Papuan  household.  Boys  and  girls  will  gaze 
with  admiring  delight  at  the  naivete  of  the  model : 
a  thousand  brick  boxes,  separated  by  a  thousand 
little  gardens,  with  three  thousand  little  chimneys 
smoking,  a  thousand  amateur  cooks  perspiring  over 
a  thousand  fires,  and  a  thousand  inefficient  servant- 


200  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

girls  flirting  with  the  servants  of  rival  butchers  and 
dairymen.  The  common  nursery  will  especially 
relieve  the  mother  and  lower  the  death-rate.  The 
State  will  one  day  have  an  interest  in  seeing  that 
each  babe  ushered  into  the  world,  at  such  pain  and 
sacrifice,  becomes  a  useful  citizen.  If  any  mothers 
care  to  entrust  the  child  more  fully  to  it,  the  State 
will  find  it  profitable  to  respond.  These  things 
can  be  arranged  without  more  detriment  to  parental 
affection  than  there  is  in  the  case  of  women — often 
women  who  write  beautiful  things  in  defence  of 
the  old  tradition — who  have  nurses  for  the  child 
and  send  it  later  to  a  distant  school  for  the  greater 
part  of  the  year. 

Reforms  of  this  kind  will  enormously  relieve  the 
home  life  and  enable  even  mothers  to  earn,  if  they 
wish,  quite  as  much  as  the  State  would  ever  be  able 
to  award  them.  The  work  will  be  better  done,  by 
trained  workers,  at  less  cost.  People  do  not  reflect 
that  this  change  has  been  proceeding  for  centuries. 
Once  the  wife  brewed  the  ale,  and  baked  the  bread, 
and  spun  the  linen  :  later  she  entrusted  these  things 
to  experts  working  for  the  community,  and  reserved 
for  herself  the  making  of  preserves,  pickles,  under- 
clothing, and  antimacassars  :  now  these  things  have 
gone  to  the  expert,  and  the  wife  confines  her  amateur 
efforts  to  scolding  children  and  cooking  refractory 
joints.  She  will  be  relieved  when  it  is  all  over,  and 
we  shall  have  no  more  of  the  "  beautiful  doll  "  or 
the  domestic  drudge.  The  independent  position 
and  greater  leisure  and  broader  interest  in  life  will 


THE  FUTURE  OF  WOMAN  201 

make  her  intellectual  activity  more  similar  to  that 
of  man's. 

I  speak,  of  course,  of  the  mass  of  women,  and  do 
not  forget  that  already  the  intellect  of  alert  and 
thoughtful  women  is  equal  to  that  of  men  of  the 
corresponding  class.  The  majority  will  be,  as  it 
were,  differently  orientated  toward  life  by  these 
changes.  A  saner  muscular  activity  will  restore  the 
balance  of  the  system,  and  will  rid  them  of  the 
excessive  nerve-energy,  particularly  of  the  sym- 
pathetic system,  which  finds  expression  in  facile  and 
explosive  emotion.  There  will  assuredly  always  be 
a  bias  toward  sentiment  in  woman,  and  we  have 
no  reason  to  fear  a  deterioration  of  the  distinc- 
tively feminine  sentiments  of  tenderness,  refinement, 
and  sympathy.  The  relief  from  the  more  irritating 
domesticities  ought  to  accentuate  them.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  idea  of  obeying  the  male  or  practising 
self-sacrifice  for  his  undue  benefit,  will  certainly 
disappear ;  and  it  is  quite  time  that  it  did.  Self- 
sacrifice,  in  case  of  need,  comes  instinctively  to 
either  sex,  but  the  kind  of  self-sacrifice  which  a 
selfish  masculine  tradition  has  pressed  on  women 
is  degrading  to  the  man  and  unjust  to  wife  and 
daughter.  All  that  is  attractive  and  really  benefi- 
cent in  woman  will  be  fostered,  but  on  the  emo- 
tional side  it  will  become  less  and  less  characteristic 
of  one  sex.  The  sharp  contrast  of  the  sexes  tends 
to  disappear.  There  is  something  grotesque  about 
the  traditional  idea  that  the  human  male  must 
be  distinguished  by  a  greater  capacity  for  taking 


202  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

alcohol  and  using  meaningless  expletives  and  telling 
sexual  stories.  Even  in  physical  strength  and 
athletic  skill  the  sexes  are  approaching ;  nor  does 
one  find  any  loss  of  charm  or  grace  in  some  of  the 
finest  women  athletes. 

These  changes  are  proceeding,  and,  apart  from 
inevitable  errors  and  excesses,  on  which  caricatur- 
ists fasten  with  their  genial  unscrupulousness,  the 
result  is  promising.  Contemporary  expressions  of 
alarm  are  often  ludicrous.  Thousands  of  ladies 
who  are  horrified  at  the  emergence  of  "  a  new  sex  " 
are  themselves  contriving,  by  means  which  would 
have  caused  their  prolific  grandmothers  to  raise 
white  hands  to  heaven,  to  limit  their  families  to 
two  children.  We  take  our  reform  in  small  doses, 
as  if  complete  social  health  were  a  thing  to  be  con- 
sidered very  seriously.  Yet  if  one  patiently  traces 
in  imagination  the  effect  of  all  these  changes  on 
the  womanhood  of  the  race,  one  foresees  a  genera- 
tion of  women  which  recalls  Shelley's  lines  : 

"And  women,  too,  frank,  beautiful,  and  kind 
As  the  free  heaven  which  rains  fresh  light  and  dew 
On  the  wide  earth,  past ;  gentle  radiant  forms, 
From  custom's  evil  taint  exempt  and  pure  ; 
Speaking  the  wisdom  once  they  could  not  think, 
Looking  emotions  once  they  feared  to  feel, 
And  changed  to  all  which  once  they  dared  not  be, 
Yet,  being  now,  made  earth  like  heaven  ;  nor  pride, 
Nor  jealousy,  nor  envy,  nor  ill-shame, 
The  bitterest  of  those  drops  of  treasured  gall, 
Spoilt  the  sweet  taste  of  the  nepenthe,  love." 

Grant  the  poet  his  licence ;   women  are  not  more 


THE  FUTURE  OF  WOMAN  203 

likely  than  men  to  become  angels.  The  moral 
superiority  which  some  Feminist  writers  claim  for 
their  sex  is  founded  on  a  curiously  narrow  view  of 
life ;  if  man,  instead  of  woman,  had  to  pay  the 
penalty  of  sexual  intercourse,  we  should  probably 
find  the  aggression  on  the  other  side.  Yet  the 
most  sober-minded  of  us  must  expect  from  this 
healthier  balance  of  powers,  this  easing  of  the 
domestic  burden,  this  limitation  of  care  to  a  few 
children,  and  this  independence  of  marital  generosity 
or  marital  selfishness,  a  great  advancement  in  the 
character  and  happiness  of  woman. 

Shelley,  however,  was  thinking  less  of  wives 
than  of  free  women,  and  economic  independence 
will  swell  their  numbers.  The  changes  I  have 
described  will  make  marriage  far  less  onerous,  but 
thej'  will  also  make  it  easier  for  a  woman  to  dispense 
with  marriage,  and  before  the  end  of  the  twentieth 
century  there  will  be  in  every  city  a  growth  of 
temporary  unions  and  independent  conduct. 
Woman  will  be  mistress,  morally  and  economically, 
of  her  own  destiny ;  she  will  consult  neither  husband 
nor  priest.  The  plain  moral  law,  which  forbids  a 
man  to  inflict  pain  or  injustice,  will  be  more  faith- 
fully observed  than  it  ever  was  before.  There  will  be 
an  immense  reduction  of  the  hypocrisy,  the  prostitu- 
tion, the  misery  and  illness,  which  this  fictitious 
law  of  chastity  has  always  caused  ;  and  the  altera- 
tion of  public  opinion  will  remove  from  a  woman 
the  unpleasant  consequences  which  unwedded  love 
entails  at  the  present  time.  It  is  preposterous  to 


204  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

say  that  the  State  will  be  injured  by  these  changes, 
and  it  seems  clear  that  woman  will  be  happier, 
more  healthily  developed,  and  not  less  tender  and 
graceful  than  she  can  be  under  the  present  reign 
of  shams. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

SHAMS  OF  THE   SCHOOL 

THE  constructive  scheme  which  I  have  in  mind 
throughout  this  criticism  of  our  prejudices  and 
institutions  may,  as  I  said,  be  summed  essentially 
in  two  words  :  industrial  organisation  and  educa- 
tion. When  we  have  reformed  our  administrative 
machinery,  which  we  miscall  "government,"  and 
abandoned  our  military  and  naval  atrocities,  and 
simplified  international  life,  our  chosen  -public 
servants  will  find  that  these  two  are  their  chief 
concerns.  Probably  the  supreme  concern  will — 
once  we  have  constructed  an  orderly  industrial 
machinery — be  education,  in  the  sense  which  I 
would  attach  to  the  word.  Every  year  a  million 
new  citizens  will  join  the  community,  and  it  will 
be  the  State's  first  business  to  see  that  they  are 
thoroughly  prepared  in  every  respect  to  contribute 
to  its  weal  and  happiness,  and  that  they  maintain 
throughout  life  sufficient  intellectual  alertness  to 
control  their  common  concerns  with  wisdom  and 
in  a  progressive  spirit.  It  is  as  a  necessary  pre- 
liminary to  this  that  I  have  dealt  critically  and 
reconstructively  with  the  home  and  the  parent. 

aos 


206  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

That  glorification  of  indolence  which  we  call  the 
principle  of  laissez-faire  is  so  successful  in  this 
department  of  our  public  life  that  what  ought  to  be 
the  State's  chief  concern  is  hardly  ever  mentioned 
in  our  orgies  of  parliamentary  debate.  We  peck 
at  it  occasionally.  We  enact  that  babies  must  have 
orange-boxes,  and  that  children  must  not  smoke 
cigarettes  or  approach  within  a  certain  number  of 
yards  of  a  bar  (so  that  we  get  bar-scenes  outside 
the  door)  ;  and  occasionally  the  representatives 
of  rival  sects  get  up  a  grand  debate  on  the  Bible  in 
the  school.  These  things  emphasise  the  general 
neglect.  Laissez-faire  meant  originally,  "  Leave 
things  as  they  are  " — it  sounded  better  in  French, 
but,  like  many  ancient  sentiments,  it  was  converted 
into  a  respectable  philosophy  :  "  The  State  must 
leave  as  much  as  possible  to  the  individual  and 
the  amateur."  Nineteenth-century  Radicals  fought 
heroically  for  this  Conservative  principle. 

Education,  however,  was  so  flagrantly  neglected 
by  the  parent  and  the  Church  that  we  had  to  com- 
promise and  take  the  child's  mind  out  of  their  care  : 
leaving  its  body  and  character  to  the  old  hazards.  At 
last  it  dawns  on  us  that  a  sound  body  and  character 
are  just  as  important  to  the  State  as  the  capacity 
to  read  comic  journals  and  stories  :  that  the  entire 
being  of  the  child  needs  expert  training,  and  it  is 
worth  the  State's  while  to  give  it.  This  broad 
ideal  of  education  is  increasingly  accepted  by 
paedagogists  and  social  writers,  and  it  is  already 
largely  embodied  in  educational  practice.  It  has 


SHAMS  OF  THE  SCHOOL  207 

provoked  the  usual  reaction,  the  usual  determination 
that  we  will  not  allow  our  ways  to  be  reformed 
without  a  struggle.  "  Advanced  "  teachers  fight 
with  Conservative  teachers  and  politicians  (particu- 
larly of  the  vestry  type),  and  the  familiar  old 
hymn- tunes  are  heard  throughout  the  land.  We 
must  not  weaken  parental  responsibility  :  we  must 
not  lessen  the  charm  of  the  domestic  circle  :  we 
must  not  encroach  on  the  sphere  of  the  Church  : 
we  must  beware  of  Socialism  :  we  must  resist  the 
thin  end  of  the  wedge  wherever  we  see  one. 

Why  did  the  State,  in  the  first  half  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  undertake  the  task  of  educating 
the  young  ?  I  do  not  mean  that  State-education 
was  a  new  thing  in  history  when  a  few  European 
Governments  adopted  it  little  over  a  century  ago. 
The  Roman  Empire  had  had  a  very  fair  system  of 
municipal  and  State-education,  and  it  is  one  of 
the  gravest  charges  against  the  clergy  that  they 
suffered  it  to  decay,  and  allowed  or  compelled 
ninety  per  cent,  of  their  followers  to  remain  in  a 
state  of  gross  ignorance  for  fourteen  hundred  years. 
At  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  as  the  revolt 
against  ecclesiastical  authority  spread,  the  idea 
of  State-education  was  revived.  In  England  the 
clergy  warmly  resisted  the  progress  of  the  idea,  but 
the  appalling  ignorance  of  the  people  proved  intoler- 
able to  the  increasing  band  of  reformers.  Quakers 
like  Lancaster  and  Agnostics  like  Robert  Owen 
demanded  and  provided  schools  for  the  children  of 
the  workers,  and  the  Church  of  England  was  forced 


208  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

to  meet  this  danger  of  unsectarian  education  by 
founding  a  rival  and  orthodox  association.  But  for 
fifty  years  the  schooling  remained  so  primitive,  and 
the  proportion  of  illiterates  remained  so  enormous, 
that  at  last  the  bishops  were  brushed  aside  and 
the  Government  was  compelled  to  resume  the  work 
of  the  old  Roman  municipalities  and  Senate. 

The  motives  of  the  reformers  and  statesmen  who 
secured  this  advance  were  complex.  Some  of  them 
were  frankly  anti-clerical  and  eager  to  undermine 
superstition  :  some  of  them  were  business-men  who 
pleaded  that  a  lettered  worker  was  worth  more 
to  the  State  than  an  illiterate  worker.  The  pre- 
dominant feeling  was,  as  it  had  been  among  the 
Stoic  reformers  at  Rome,  humanitarian.  The  gross 
ignorance  of  the  mass  of  the  people  was  a  disgrace  to 
civilisation  and  a  source  of  brutality  and  crime  :  it 
was  a  human  duty  to  educate.  It  was  very  widely 
recognised  that  this  sentiment  imposed  on  us  a 
duty  of  developing  the  child's  character  as  well  as 
its  mind,  but  here  the  Churches  were  inflexible. 
Unblushingly  asserting  that  they  were  the  historic 
educators  of  Europe,  they  refused  to  relinquish 
their  last  hold  on  the  school,  and  the  State  was  com- 
pelled to  accept  the  compromise  of  religious  in- 
struction in  the  public  schools,  as  well  as  the  endow- 
ment of  sectarian  schools.  As  to  the  third  part  of 
the  ideal  of  education,  the  cultivation  of  the  body, 
we  may  admit  that  science  itself  was  not  yet  suffi- 
ciently advanced  to  demand  it. 

With  the  growth  of  democratic  aspirations,  the 


SHAMS  OF  THE  SCHOOL  209 

Conservative  began  to  see  a  danger  in  this  plea  that 
the  community  must  see  to  the  full  development  of 
all  its  children,  and  new  phrases  were  invented. 
"  Industrial  efficiency  "  was  the  most  plausible  of 
these  checks  on  education.  The  manual  workers 
were  to  have  their  intellects  awakened  to  the  slight 
extent  which  was  needed  to  make  them  better 
instruments  of  production,  but  no  further :  lest 
they  should  become  dissatisfied  with  their  position 
of  inferiority  and  disturb  our  excellent  industrial 
order.  Educators,  however,  refused  to  be  restrained 
by  this  kind  of  sociology.  It  was  their  business  to 
develop  the  child's  intelligence,  and  they  had  a 
fine  ambition  to  do  it  thoroughly.  They  built 
infant-schools,  which  took  the  tender  young  away 
from  their  mothers,  to  the  great  advantage  of  both. 
They  found  that  large  numbers  of  children  were 
too  poorly  fed  or  too  defective  in  body  to  receive 
real  education,  and  they  instituted  drill  and  de- 
manded cheap  or  free  meals  and  medical  inspection. 
They  abolished  the  half-timer,  and  raised  the  age 
of  compulsory  attendance.  They  began  to  resent 
the  idea  that  lessons  from  the  Bible  were  a  training 
of  character.  These  developments  have  alarmed 
many.  They  begin  to  see  that  in  the  long-run  these 
things  will  impose  on  the  State  the  duty  of  develop- 
ing the  child's  whole  being — body,  mind,  and  char- 
acter— before  the  boy  or  girl  is  allowed  to  enter  the 
industrial  world.  We  hesitate,  as  we  do  in  face  of 
all  large  and  fully  developed  ideals,  and  look  round 
for  ways  of  escape. 
15 


210  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

The  chief  of  these  evasions  is  still  the  doctrine  of 
what  we  call  "  parental  responsibility."  Some  day 
the  idea  that  a  parent  is  the  best-fitted  person  to 
train  a  child  will  be  regarded  as  a  medieval  supersti- 
tion. The  parent  is  as  amateurish  in  training 
children  as  in  cooking  or  making  frocks.  The 
notion  that  "  nature  tells  "  a  mother  what  to  do 
is  part  of  the  crude  psychology  of  the  Schoolmen. 
From  the  moment  of  birth,  and  during  the  months 
before  birth,  the  human  mother  has  no  inspiration 
whatever.  She  goes  by  tradition,  by  the  crude 
advice  of  elders  and  neighbours,  as  every  observer 
of  the  arrival  of  the  first  baby  knows.  A  cat  acts 
by  what  we  call  "  instinct," — by  certain  neuro- 
muscular  reactions  which  natural  selection  has 
perfected, — but  a  human  being  has  intelligence 
instead  of  instinct,  and  the  first  thing  intelligence 
enjoins  is  that  experts  ought  to  be  trained  for 
particular  duties.  The  death-rate  in  every  civilised 
country  has  gone  down  enormously  since  we  ceased 
to  rely  on  motherly  instinct,  or  grandmotherly 
fables.  A  time  may  come,  therefore,  when  the 
State  will  receive  a  bearing  woman  in  a  properly 
appointed  home,  and  will  care  for  the  child  from  the 
moment  of  birth  until,  in  its  later  teens,  it  is  equipped 
for  work.  I  will  suggest  in  the  next  chapter  that 
this  ought  by  no  means  to  be  regarded  as  the  com- 
pletion of  education  ;  here  I  am  concerned  only  with 
the  earlier  part.  Many  are  convinced  that  this  is 
the  last  and  logical  term  of  the  development  on 
which  we  have  entered. 


SHAMS  OF  THE  SCHOOL  211 

I  am  avoiding  remote  ideals  as  much  as  possible, 
but  it  is  important  to  meet  the  prejudice  which 
opposes  reform  along  this  line.  Many  people  tell 
us  that,  if  this  unnatural  dethronement  of  the 
mother  and  invasion  of  the  home  are  to  be  the 
final  terms  of  our  present  development,  they  will 
resist  it  at  every  step  :  on  the  familiar  thin-end-of- 
the- wedge  principle.  Our  beautiful  "  home  life  " 
must  be  preserved  at  all  costs.  Our  "  parental 
instincts  "  shall  not  be  enfeebled. 

Candidly,  in  what  proportion  of  the  real  homes 
of  England,  as  distinct  from  the  home  of  a  fiction- 
writer,  is  the  life  "  beautiful  "  ?  In  what  proportion 
does  it  not  rather  present  the  spectacle  of  an  over- 
burdened mother  struggling  heroically  to  live  up  to 
her  reputation  for  gentleness  under  the  strain  of 
ill  or  wayward  children  and  an  irritating  husband  ? 
In  what  proportion  are  the  beautiful  homes  of  the 
novel  written  by  spinsters  or  bachelors,  or  people 
who  restrict  the  number  of  their  children,  or  men 
whose  posthumous  biographies  do  not  reveal  a  very 
sweet  home  life  ?  I  believe  it  was  Carlyle  who 
originated  that  fond  boast  that  no  nation  in  the  world 
has  a  word  for  "  home  "  like  the  English.  It  was 
certainly  Dickens  who  gave  us  the  most  touching 
pictures  of  domestic  tenderness  and  happiness. 
How  many  mothers  of  the  working  and  lower  middle 
class  do  not  dread  the  holidays,  when  the  children 
threaten  to  be  near  them  all  day  ?  How  many  are 
capable  of  training  children  ?  How  many  do  not 
regard  a  blow  as  the  supreme  moral  agency  ?  How 


212  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

many  would  not  welcome  the  easing  of  their  burden, 
and  the  training  of  their  children  by  experts  ?  And 
why  in  the  world  should  mothers  be  likely  to  have 
less  affection  for  their  children  because  they  have 
infinitely  less  trouble  with  them,  and  see  them  only 
in  their  smiling  hours  ? 

The  happiest  phase  of  English  home  life  is,  surely, 
found  in  those  middle-class  families  which  can 
send  the  children  away  to  school  for  four-fifths  of 
the  year  and  welcome  them  home  periodically  in 
the  holiday  mood.  In  the  vast  majority  of  cases  the 
teacher  has  to  struggle  despairingly  against  the 
influence  of  the  home  and  the  street  ;  for  it  is  to 
the  street  that  the  mother  entrusts  the  child.  A 
lady  (an  educational  expert)  once  observed  to  me 
that  it  was  remarkable  to  find  the  children  in 
Gaelic  districts  of  Scotland  speaking  the  purest 
English.  On  the  contrary,  it  was  wholly  natural, 
and  it  points  an  important  paedagogical  moral.  The 
children  learned  English  from  their  teachers  only  ; 
there  was  no  corrupt  English  dialect  in  the  home 
or  village  to  undo  the  teacher's  lessons.  In  other 
matters  besides  language  the  school-lessons  are 
constantly  frustrated  outside  the  school. 

I  pass  frequently  through  the  stream  of  children 
pouring  out  of  a  large  and  handsome  suburban 
school.  It  is  not  in  a  slum.  There  are  broad  green 
fields  on  every  side,  and  there  are  vast  and  beautiful 
public  spaces  not  far  away.  But  the  homes  from 
which  many  of  the  children  come  are  squalid, 
and  the  street-scenes,  especially  in  front  of  the 


SHAMS  OF  THE  SCHOOL  213 

local  inn,  are  often  disgusting.  On  more  than  one 
occasion  I  have  heard  the  men  openly  talk  of  their 
practice  of  unnatural  vice.  I  have  seen  a  girl  of 
ten  watch  her  intoxicated  father  misconduct  himself 
with  a  prostitute,  while  the  mother — whose  attention 
was  called  to  the  fact  by  the  child,  in  the  mono- 
syllabic language  of  the  district — chatted  with  a 
neighbour.  And  I  am  not  surprised  to  notice  that, 
when  the  children  burst  from  school,  which  they  hate, 
numbers  of  them  break  into  foul  language,  indecent 
behaviour,  and  fighting.  Their  world,  outside  the 
school,  is  one  mighty  drag  on  the  teacher's  efforts. 
When  they  leave  school,  with  brains  half -developed 
and  only  the  maxims  of  ancient  Judsea  (at  which 
half  their  world  scoffs)  to  guide  their  conduct,  when 
they  enter  workshops  and  laundries  and  join  the 
company  of  ring-eyed  boys  and  girls  in  the  first 
flush  of  sex-development,  they  shed  the  feeble 
influence  of  the  school-lessons  in  a  few  months. 

The  district  I  have  in  mind  is  a  very  common 
type  of  district :  a  healthy,  open  suburb  on  the 
fringe  of  London,  tainted  by  one  of  those  older 
villages  in  which  the  poorest  workers  are  apt  to 
congregate.  It  has  an  expensive  Church-Institute 
and  numerous  chapels.  You  may  see  the  thing  in 
almost  any  part  of  London,  and  most  other  towns. 
I  have  a  vivid  recollection  of  passing  from  a  Catholic 
elementary  school  and  strict  home  in  Manchester 
to  a  large  warehouse  thirty-five  years  ago.  There 
is  little  change  in  that  respect  to-day.  A  very 
few  years  ago  a  Manchester  boy  passed  the  same 


214  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

way  ;  and  a  month  or  two  later,  his  father  told  me, 
he  returned  home  chuckling  over  a  "  funny  story  " 
about  Christ.  The  school  fails,  not  from  lack  of 
devotion  in  the  teachers,  but  because  the  child 
learns  more  in  the  street,  and  often  in  the  home  ; 
and  these  lessons  are,  somehow,  more  congenial. 

Now  if  we  are  not  satisfied  with  this  comparative 
waste  of  effort  and  sterility  of  result,  we  have  to 
consider  candidly  the  ambition  of  the  educationist. 
He  wants  to  turn  out  a  young  citizen  with  an  active 
mind,  a  sound  body,  and  a  character  prepared  to 
resist  the  more  degrading  influences  of  the  world 
he  will  enter.  He  cannot  carry  out  this  aim  in  the 
case  of  every  child  entrusted  to  him,  but  he  can  in 
most  cases,  if  the  State  will  help  him.  He  must 
have  his  children  properly  nourished :  neither 
underfed  nor  stuffed  with  coarse  food  by  ignorant 
mothers.  He  must  have  them  seasonably  clothed 
and  shod  :  again  the  mothers  need  instruction  and 
pressure.  He  must  have,  not  only  drill  and  more 
natural  forms  of  exercise,  but  more  control  over 
the  children  outside  of  school-hours  ;  he  is  already 
beginning,  with  great  promise  of  good,  to  walk  and 
play  with  them,  to  take  them  to  museums,  and  so  on. 
He  must  have  adequate  medical  assistance,  and 
must  have  the  support  of  the  law  in  counteracting 
dirty  homes  and  careless  parents.  He  must  keep 
the  child  still  a  few  years  longer  at  school,  because 
a  child  only  begins  to  be  really  educable  at  thirteen 
or  fourteen.  He  must  have  the  encouragement  of 
knowing  that  the  more  promising  boys  and  girls 


SHAMS  OF  THE  SCHOOL  215 

will  find  the  avenue  open  to  higher  schools,  and  that 
the  community  will  make  some  serious  provision  of 
mental  stimulation  for  the  adolescent  and  the  adult. 
And  in  order  to  carry  out  properly  this  large  and 
promising  scheme  of  training  he  must  have  twice  as 
many  colleagues  as  he  has,  so  that  each  may  be  able 
to  give  individual  attention  to  pupils,  and  in  order 
that  too  great  demands  be  not  made  on  their  hours 
of  rest. 

But  where  are  we  to  find  the  very  large  sums  of 
money  which  would  be  required  for  carrying  out 
such  a  scheme  ?  I  wish  everybody  in  England 
realised  that  we  should  have  the  funds  to  carry 
out  this  scheme  in  its  entirety,  in  its  most  advanced 
developments,  if  we  abolished  militarism;  that  if 
we  had  done  this  before  1914,  we  should  have  had, 
in  the  cost  of  the  war,  the  funds  to  carry  out  such 
a  scheme  two  or  three  times  over.  We  have  to 
reflect  also  whether  the  increased  prosperity  of 
England  would  not  pay  the  cost.  There  are  other 
considerations  which  I  give  later,  but  I  would  add 
here  at  least  a  word  about  experience  in  other 
lands.  At  New  York  and  Chicago  I  visited  schools 
— elementary  and  secondary,  but  both  free — with 
which  we  have  nothing  to  compare  in  this  country  : 
palatial  structures  with  superb  equipment  and 
devoted  staffs.  Yet  when  I  asked  ratepayers  how 
they  contrived  to  spend  so  lavishly  on  education, 
the  three  or  four  public  men  I  asked  were  so  little 
conscious  of  a  burden  that  they  were  unable  to 
explain  satisfactorily  where  the  funds  came  from ! 


216  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

We  are,  however,  making  progress  here  and  there, 
— Bradford,  for  instance,  has  had  the  courage  to 
be  quite  Socialistic  in  its  care  of  the  young, — and 
the  triple  ideal  of  education  is  generally,  if  at  times 
reluctantly,  recognised.  As  far  as  the  education 
of  the  body  is  concerned,  in  fact,  we  have  no  ground 
for  quarrelling  with  our  teachers,  whatever  we  may 
say  of  some  of  our  educational  authorities.  Medical 
inspection,  drill,  hygiene,  play,  excursions,  feeding, 
etc.,  are  discussed  very  conscientiously  at  every 
meeting  of  teachers,  and  the  reforms  proposed  are 
more  or  less  admitted  in  all  places,  even  under  the 
London  County  Council.  The  teachers  themselves 
often  go  far  beyond  their  prescribed  tasks  in  en- 
deavouring to  help  the  children.  In  places  they 
yield  part  of  their  necessary  midday  rest  to  attend 
to  the  feeding  of  poor  children  :  which  I  found 
admirably,  and  most  cheerfully  and  expeditiously, 
done  in  Chicago  (where  1500  children  at  one  school 
were  quietly  and  excellently  fed  in  thirty  minutes) 
by  a  committee  of  ladies  of  the  district.  They  give 
Saturdays  and  holidays  for  conducting  visits  to 
museums  or  excursions,  or  for  controlling  sports. 
What  is  chiefly  needed  is  that  the  authorities 
should  deal  stringently  with  backward  sectarian 
schools,  and  provide  a  very  much  larger  supply 
of  teachers  and  servants.  The  municipal  authority 
of  the  richest  city  in  the  world — the  London  County 
Council — is  scandalously  stingy  and  reactionary  in 
this  respect. 

When  we  turn  to  the  question  of  educating  the 


SHAMS  OF  THE  SCHOOL  217 

intelligence,  it  is  not  possible  to  approve  so  cordially. 
No  one,  assuredly,  can  fail  to  appreciate  the  zeal 
and  efforts  of  educationists  and  teachers,  especially 
in  the  last  few  decades.  Hardly  any  body  of  pro- 
fessional men  and  women  among  us,  certainly  no 
body  of  public  servants,  has  a  deeper  and  sounder 
ambition  to  conduct  its  work  on  the  most  effective 
lines.  A  vast  literature  is  published,  frequent 
congresses  are  held,  and  the  science  of  psychology 
is  assiduously  cultivated.  One  must  appreciate 
also  the  fatal  limitations  of  the  teacher's  activity ; 
as  long  as  we  withdraw  children  from  him  at  the 
age  of  fourteen,  education  is  impossible.  It  may 
seem,  therefore,  ungracious  or  unwise  to  criticise, — 
though  I  am  not  wholly  a  layman  in  regard  to 
education, — but  there  is  at  least  one  feature  of  our 
school  life  to  which  I  would  draw  serious  critical 
attention. 

The  general  public  is  apt  to  express  this  feature 
resentfully  by  saying  that  the  modern  teacher 
"  crams."  Better  informed  critics  have  put  it  that 
modern  education  is  little  more  than  a  process  of 
"  encephalisation,"  or  the  imprinting  of  certain 
facts  on  the  child's  brain  almost  as  mechanically 
as  the  indenting  of  marks  on  the  cylinder  of  a 
gramophone.  Each  of  these  criticisms  implies  an 
injustice.  Educationists  and  teachers  have,  of 
course,  discussed  this  very  point  for  decades,  and 
the  present  system  is  the  formulation  of  their  de- 
liberate judgment.  They  still  differ  amongst  them- 
selves as  to  the  proportion  of  memory-work  and 


218  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

stimulation-work,  but  it  is  too  late  in  the  day  (if 
accurate  at  all)  to  tell  teachers  that  to  "  educate  " 
means  "  to  draw  out "  the  child's  "  faculties," 
not  to  put  in.  Every  elementary  teacher  knows 
that  he  must  train  the  child  to  think  as  well  as 
furnish  it  with  positive  information.  The  point  one 
may  legitimately  raise  is  whether  the  general 
educational  practice  represents  a  fair  adjustment 
of  the  two  functions. 

It  is  essential  in  such  disputes  to  have  clear 
principles.  What  is  the  aim  of  education  ?  The 
current  phrase,  "  to  make  good  citizens,"  is  far  too 
vague.  A  good  citizen  is,  in  a  large  employer's 
mind,  a  man  who  will  work  for  two  pounds  a  week 
and  not  annoy  wealthier  people  by  demanding 
more :  in  a  clergyman's  mind,  one  who  goes  to 
church.  The  point  is  serious  and  relevant,  because 
there  is  a  growing  tendency  among  the  middle 
and  upper  class  to  insist  on  a  return  to  the  ideal 
of  the  old  Church  of  England  school  society  :  the 
children  must  not  be  educated  in  such  a  way  that 
they  will  aspire  above  the  station  to  which  the 
Almighty  has  called  them.  As,  however,  the 
educationist  will  probably  reply  at  once  that  his 
duty  is  to  do  all  in  his  power  to  promote  intelligence 
during  such  period  as  the  State  thinks  advisable, 
we  need  not  discuss  the  larger  ideal  of  developing 
the  child's  powers  on  general  humanitarian  grounds. 

But  glance  at  the  manuals  which  are  used  in 
our  schools,  and  consider  whether  we  have  as  yet 
realised  the  true  ideal  of  education.  These  manuals, 


SHAMS  OF  THE  SCHOOL  219 

and  the  methods  employed,  are  the  outcome  of  a 
hundred  years  of  critical  discussion,  yet  I  venture 
to  say  that  they  need  to  be  entirely  rewritten.  I 
pass  over  the  infant-schools  and  earlier  standards, 
where  the  first  general  ideas  are  carefully,  and  on 
the  whole  judiciously,  implanted.  As  soon,  how- 
ever, as  the  child  enters  its  teens,  it  is  painfully 
overloaded  with  memory-work.  I  take,  for  example, 
the  manuals  of  geography  and  history  which  are 
used  in  educating  children  of  eleven  in  a  first-class 
London  secondary  school.  They  are  crammed 
with  information  which  will  never  be  of  the  least 
use  to  one  man  in  ten  thousand,  and  which  we 
have  no  right  whatever  to  impose  on  the  young 
brain  with  so  much  necessary  work  to  do. 

The  manual  of  early  English  history  which  I 
have  before  me  is  a  characteristically  modern 
production.  Instead  of  the  grim  old  paragraphs, 
in  alternate  large  and  small  type,  on  which  the  eye 
of  the  child  nearly  always  gazes  with  reluctance, 
there  are  vivid  sketches  of  life  in  successive  ages. 
There  is  danger,  perhaps,  that  the  child  will  pass 
to  the  opposite  extreme,  and  take  the  manual  as 
a  story-book,  a  work  of  ephemeral  interest ;  at 
least  careful  guidance  will  be  needed  to  enable 
it  to  select  the  necessary  material  which  is  to  be 
memorised.  But  the  chief  defect  still  is  the  over- 
loading of  the  pages  with  matter  of  no  serious 
usefulness.  The  doings  of  Ethelbert  and  Ethelf rith 
and  Redwald  and  Penda  and  Offa,  whose  very 
names  bewilder  the  young  mind,  are  compressed 


220  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

into  a  few  forbidding  paragraphs,  instead  of  being 
relegated  to  the  University.  Later  come  Ethelwulf 
and  Osburh  and  Ethelbald  and  Ethelbert ;  and 
Sweyn  Forkbeard  and  Olaf  Trygvasson  and  Guhilda  ; 
and  Rhodri  and  Llywelyn  and  Griffith  ap  Rees  and 
Own  Gwynedd  and  Egfrith  and  Malcolm  Canmore 
and  John  Baliol.  How  many  of  us  know,  or  need 
to  know,  a  word  about  them,  and  their  families, 
and  their  battles  ?  Then  the  French  wars  are  told 
in  detail,  and  the  pages  bristle  with  dates  and 
French  names  and  genealogies ;  and  the  Wars  of 
the  Roses  introduce  a  new  series  of  repellent  and 
useless  names  and  dates.  The  child,  in  a  word, 
is  enormously  overburdened  with  stuff  which  we 
adults  would  refuse  to  commit  to  memory  or  even 
to  read.  Yet  this  is  a  very  modern  manual,  the 
last  word  in  the  adaptation  of  history  to  the  mind 
of  a  child  of  ten  or  eleven. 

The  manual  of  European  geography,  also,  is  one 
of  the  most  modern  and  enlightened  that  a  teacher 
can  choose,  but  it  imposes  a  mass  of  pedantic  and 
useless  knowledge.  Isotherms  and  isobars  and  the 
freezing  of  the  Oder  and  Vistula  and  Danube  ;  the 
navigability  of  the  Ebro  and  Guadalquiver,  and 
the  wheat-growing  areas  of  France  and  Spain,  and 
the  industries  of  Lille  and  Roubaix  and  Magdeburg 
and  Lombardy  and  Smyrna  ;  in  a  word,  fully  one- 
third  of  the  details  in  the  little  manual — the  details 
which  it  is  most  difficult  to  remember,  which  tax 
the  child's  brain  most,  and  will  be  forgotten  soonest 
and  with  least  loss — ought  not  to  have  been  in- 


SHAMS  OF  THE  SCHOOL  221 

serted.  The  whole  plan  is  academic  and  pedantic  : 
it  is  built  on  the  supposition  that  the  child  must 
have  a  summary  of  the  kind  of  knowledge  which  a 
geographical  expert  would  have  to  master.  And 
in  later  years  the  child  must  laboriously  cover  the 
whole  globe  with  the  same  unnecessary  attention 
to  useless  details. 

In  mathematics,  at  least,  the  same  criticism 
will  hold.  Geometry  is,  of  course,  no  longer  a  mere 
task  of  memorisation  ;  but  the  positive  knowledge 
of  problems  is  not  of  the  least  use,  save  in  a  few 
exceptional  cases,  and  the  training  of  the  mind 
might  be  achieved  by  lessons  in  natural  science.  In 
natural  science  itself  one  might  quarrel  with  much 
of  the  material  given  :  not  one  in  ten  thousand, 
for  instance,  will  even  remember  in  later  years 
the  elements  of  botany.  But  at  least  we  are,  in 
giving  scientific  information,  training  the  young 
to  inquire  into  the  nature  of  positive  reality  and 
initiating  them  to  branches  of  knowledge  in  which 
they  can  easily  advance  in  later  years,  since  we 
have  so  fine  a  popular  literature  of  science,  and  the 
advance  will  be  a  considerable  gain  in  their  whole 
mental  outlook.  It  is  chiefly  in  regard  to  history 
and  geography  that  time  and  labour  might  be 
spared,  and  more  leisure  given  for  ensuring  that 
the  child  will  assimilate  the  knowledge  imparted. 
Mental  energy  should  not  be  wasted  in  mastering 
an  immense  collection  of  facts  which,  experience 
shows,  are  certain  to  be  forgotten  within  a  few  years. 

I  may  also  recall  that,  when  we  choose  to  carry 


222  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

out  the  elementary  reform  of  abolishing  the  plurality 
of  tongues,  a  vast  economy  will  be  made  in  the 
curriculum,  and  really  useful  knowledge  will  be 
imparted  more  thoroughly  and  with  finer  attention 
to  the  texture  of  the  child's  brain.  The  academic 
plea,  that  there  is  excellent  training  in  a  thorough 
study  of  Latin  and  Greek,  may  be  freely  granted. 
But  there  is  just  as  excellent  a  training  in  the 
thorough  study  of  such  branches  of  science  as  are 
fitted  for  the  school,  and  the  positive  information 
gained  is  permanently  useful. 

If  we  thus  eliminate  languages  and  simplify 
geography  and  history  we  give  the  modern  teacher 
a  more  hopeful  opportunity.  It  is  surely  the 
universal  experience  that  we  forget  nine-tenths  of 
the  geographical  details  we  learn  at  school,  and  we 
find  little  inconvenience  in  re-learning  such  as  we 
need  to  master  in  later  years.  A  judicious  outline- 
scheme,  with  more  physiography  and  less  of  use- 
less detail,  and  a  fuller  account  of  one's  national 
geography  (not  because  it  describes  the  child's 
country,  but  because  it  is  practical  information) 
would  suffice.  The  remainder,  or  part  of  it,  could 
be  imparted  in  technical  training  for  commerce. 
History  should  be  wholly  remodelled.  It  is  ludi- 
crous to-day  to  make  the  child  grow  pale  and  worn 
over  the  past  royal  families  and  wars  of  England, 
and  dismiss  the  general  history  of  the  race  in  a 
page  or  two.  A  fine  scheme  of  the  history,  and 
even  the  prehistory  and  origin,  of  the  human  race, 
with  so  much  fuller  information  about  the  child's 


SHAMS  OF  THE  SCHOOL  223 

own  country  as  is  useful  for  the  understanding  of 
its  institutions  and  monuments,  could  be  imparted 
in  less  time,  with  more  interest,  and  with  far 
greater  profit.  The  patriotic  sham  deeply  vitiates 
our  scheme  of  instruction  and  makes  the  training 
of  the  child  scandalously  one-sided  and  exacting. 
Germany  has  recently  shown  us  the  pernicious 
results  of  this  political  perversion  of  education. 

Passing  to  the  moral  education  of  children,  we 
at  once  find  it  cruelly  distorted  and  enfeebled  by 
a  religious  sham  of  the  least  defensible  nature. 
Such  moralists  as  Kant  and  Emerson  hardly  ex- 
aggerated the  human  importance  of  moral  law, 
however  much  they  failed  to  understand  its  human 
significance.  Character  is  the  pivot  on  which  life 
turns.  The  general  diffusion  of  fine  qualities  of 
character  would  transform  the  earth,  quite  apart 
from  economic  and  political  reform,  and  lead  to  a 
speedier  settlement  of  our  industrial  and  inter- 
national difficulties.  It  is  therefore  of  supreme 
importance  to  train  the  will  or  character  of  the 
child  from  its  earliest  years.  Yet  there  is  no 
other  branch  of  our  education,  and  hardly  any 
other  branch  of  our  life,  in  which  we  tolerate  so 
crude  and  ludicrous  a  pretence  of  work. 

The  education  authority  of  the  Metropolis  of 
England  would,  one  supposes,  have  the  advantage 
of  the  finest  expert  advice  in  the  world.  Enter 
one  of  the  thousands  of  schools  under  its  control, 
however,  and  ask  how  the  training  of  character  is 
conducted.  A  teacher  informs  you  that  at  college 


224  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

he  has  learned  only  to  impart "  Biblical  knowledge." 
He  will  show  you  a  scheme  of  lessons  founded  on  the 
Old  and  New  Testament.  The  younger  the  child, 
the  more  preposterous  the  lesson.  In  the  lower 
standards  the  child  must  learn  the  story  of  the 
Creation,  the  Fall,  the  Deluge,  etc.  It  is  still  too 
young  to  imagine  that  its  teacher  may,  at  the 
command  of  our  education  authorities,  be  grossly 
deceiving  it,  or  to  perceive  that  these  ancient 
Babylonian  legends  contain  no  particular  in- 
centive to  virtue.  When  it  passes  to  the  higher 
standards  it  is  initiated  to  some  equally  remark- 
able stories  about  the  early  history  of  mankind 
and  the  early  conduct  of  the  Deity.  The  teacher 
rarely  believes  these  things,  and  it  may  be  assumed 
that  men  like  Mr.  Sidney  Webb,  who  voted  for  this 
scheme  of  education  in  the  L.C.C.,  do  not.  If  the 
child  has  intelligence  enough  to  raise  the  question 
of  veracity,  it  must  be  snubbed  or  deceived.  A 
London  teacher  told  me  that  on  one  occasion, 
when  he  had  described  some  of  the  remarkable 
proceedings  of  the  Israelites  in  ancient  Palestine, 
a  precocious  youngster  asked  :  "  Please,  sir,  is  it 
true  ?  "  Our  education  authorities  forbid  him  to 
reply  to  such  a  question.  Indeed,  his  headmaster 
was  a  Nonconformist  (very  zealous  for  Bible  lessons), 
and  would  find  a  way  to  punish  any  departure  from 
the  appointed  untruths. 

The  lessons  from  the  New  Testament  are,  it  is 
true,  devoid  of  this  atmosphere  of  Oriental  animal- 
ism, ferocity,  and  superstition  which  clings  to  the 


SHAMS  OF  THE  SCHOOL  225 

Old  Testament  lesson,  but  here  again  the  teacher 
is  forced  to  violate  the  elementary  principles  of 
education.  He  must  gravely  tell  the  story  of  the 
miraculous  birth,  the  crucifixion,  and  the  resurrec- 
tion of  Christ.  He  probably  knows  that  some  of 
the  most  learned  divines  in  England  and  other 
countries  regard  these  stories  as  false,  but  he  must 
deliberately  and  solemnly  tell  the  young  that 
Christ  was  God  and  that  these  things  are  written 
in  the  "  Word  of  God."  He  must  repeat  parables 
which  we  know  to  have  been  borrowed  (and  often 
spoiled  in  the  borrowing)  from  the  Jewish  rabbis, 
yet  teach  that  this  was  the  unique  feature  of  Christ's 
preaching.  He  must  use  all  his  ingenuity  to  wring 
a  moral  lesson  out  of  the  parables  of  the  workers 
in  the  vineyard,  the  royal  banquet,  and  so  on.  He 
must  keep  up  this  elaborate  deception  of  the  child 
until  it  leaves  his  care  ;  and  he  knows  that,  in  nine 
cases  out  of  ten  in  London  or  any  large  city,  the 
child  is  already  hearing  on  all  sides  sneers  at  these 
ancient  myths,  and  laughing  at  the  system  which 
inculcates  them  in  the  name  of  all  that  is  most 
sacred. 

The  aim  of  our  London  authorities,  and  education 
authorities  generally  in  England,  is  not  to  train 
character,  but  to  teach  the  contents  of  the  Bible. 
Why  a  civic  authority  should  include  the  teaching 
of  the  Bible  no  man  knows;  and  whether  a  civic 
authority  can  be  indifferent  to  the  truth  or  untruth 
of  the  lessons  it  imposes  few  seem  to  ask.  Mr. 
Sidney  Webb,  endorsing  these  lessons,  said  that 
16 


226  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

the  Bible  was  "  great  literature  "  ;  and  scores  of  our 
parochial  legislators,  who  were  not  generally  known 
to  admire  great  literature  (but  were  known  to  have 
numbers  of  Nonconformist  constituents),  fervently 
repeated  the  phrase.  Does  the  child  appreciate  or 
hear  a  single  word  about  the  literary  qualities 
of  the  Bible  ?  Does  a  literary  lesson  need  to  be  a 
deliberate  lesson  in  untruth  ?  Can  we  find  no  great 
literature  which  has  not  the  taint  of  untruth  ? 

Dr.  Clifford  says  that  these  lessons  tend  to  make 
"  good  citizens."  It  is  not  at  first  sight  apparent 
why  we  should  go  to  the  literature  of  an  ancient, 
mendacious,  polygamous,  and  bloodthirsty  tribe 
for  lessons  in  citizenship  in  a  modern  civilisation. 
Let  us  suppose,  however,  that  the  ingenious  teacher 
has  wrung  a  moral  of  truthfulness,  fraternity, 
respect  for  women,  self-reliance,  and  universal 
justice  out  of  these  peculiar  records  of  ancient 
Judaea.  Follow  the  child,  in  imagination,  into  the 
later  years  of  citizenship.  He  hardly  leaves  the 
school  before  he  learns  that  the  whole  Biblical 
scheme  is  very  generally  ridiculed,  and  is  rejected 
even  by  large  numbers  of  learned  theologians. 
Before  many  years,  at  least,  he  is  fairly  sure  to  learn 
this.  The  prescriptions  of  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  he,  of  course,  never  had  the  slightest  intention 
of  observing.  The  teacher,  even  while  he  reads  the 
quixotic  counsels,  knows,  and  possibly  notes  with 
approval,  that  the  boy's  code  is  :  "  If  any  smite  thee 
on  the  one  cheek,  smite  him  forthwith  on  both." 
But  the  boy  now  learns  that  from  the  Creation  to  the 


SHAMS  OF  THE  SCHOOL  227 

Resurrection  the  whole  story  is  seriously  disputed 
and  is  rejected  by  the  majority  of  well-educated 
people.  He  looks  back  on  his  "  Bible  lessons  "  and 
his  teacher  with  derision,  and  he  discards  the  whole 
authority  of  his  code  of  conduct.  Surely  an  admir- 
able foundation  for  virtue  and  citizenship  ! 

Into  the  larger  question  of  the  relation  of  religious 
education  and  crime  I  cannot  enter  here.  I  have 
shown  elsewhere  that  France,  Victoria,  and  New 
Zealand,  the  countries  with  longest  experience  of 
secular  education,  have  the  best  record  among 
civilised  nations  in  the  reduction  of  crime.  The 
carelessness  of  clerical  writers  as  to  the  truth  of  their 
statements  on  this  subject  is  appalling.  There  is 
not  a  tittle  of  reason  in  criminal  statistics,  or  any 
other  exact  indications  of  national  health,  for 
retaining  religious  lessons  in  our  schools.  They 
are  there  merely  because  the  clergy  find  it  con- 
ducive to  their  prestige  to  have  their  sacred  book 
enthroned  with  honour  in  the  national  scheme  of 
education.  As  in  the  case  of  divorce,  they  ask 
us  to  maintain  immorality  in  the  name  of  religion. 
German  schools  are  saturated  with  religious  teaching, 
yet  we  have  seen  the  issue  of  it  all. 

For  one  hundred  years  our  English  school-system 
has  been  hampered  and  perverted  by  this  clerical 
insistence  on  religious  lessons.  Parents,  they 
sometimes  say,  desire  it ;  but  when  the  Trades 
Union  Congress,  the  only  large  body  of  parents 
which  ever  pronounced  on  the  subject,  repeatedly 
voted  for  secular  education,  by  overwhelming 


228  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

majorities,  the  clergy,  through  the  minority  of  their 
followers,  could  only  secure  the  exclusion  of  the 
subject  from  the  agenda.  Neither  do  the  majority 
of  teachers  desire  it ;  while  educationists,  as  a  whole, 
resent  this  grievous  complication  of  their  work. 
Nothing  but  the  complete  secularisation  of  all 
schools  receiving  funds  from  the  nation  or  muni- 
cipality will  enable  us  to  advance.  The  clergy 
must  do  their  own  work  on  their  own  premises. 
The  moral  pretext  is  a  thin  disguise  of  an  effort  to 
use  the  nation's  resources  and  authority  for  the 
purpose  of  attaching  children  to  the  churches. 

Writers  on  the  subject  are  not  wholly  agreed 
whether  we  ought  to  substitute  moral  lessons  for 
the  discarded  Bible  lessons.  We  can  in  such  a 
matter  proceed  only  on  probabilities,  and  it  seems 
to  me  that  judicious  lessons  for  the  training  of 
character  are  very  desirable.  I  do  not  so  much 
mean  abstract  or  direct  lessons  on  the  various 
qualities  of  character.  If  such  lessons  (on  truthful- 
ness, honesty,  manliness,  etc.)  were  tactfully  and 
sensibly  conducted,  they  could  be  of  great  service. 
There  is  really  not  much  danger  of  turning  the 
average  British  schoolboy  into  a  prig.  But  in- 
direct lessons,  especially  from  history  and  biography, 
should  be  more  effective. 

In  either  case  our  teachers  would  need  special 
training  for  the  lessons,  and  no  philosophic  or 
religious  or  anti-religious  view  of  moral  principles 
should  be  admitted.  Experience  has  surely  shown 
how  little  use  there  is  in  giving  children  a  "  cate- 


SHAMS  OF  THE  SCHOOL  229 

gorical  imperative,"  or  a  set  of  arbitrary  command- 
ments, or  an  aesthetic  lesson  on  "  modesty."  You 
cannot  in  one  hour  teach  the  child  to  think,  and 
in  the  next  expect  it  to  accept  your  instruction 
without  thinking,  because  you  are  not  prepared 
to  give  reasons  for  your  commands.  It  is  sometimes 
forgotten  that  even  children  share  the  mental 
awakening  of  our  age,  and  must  be  treated  wisely. 
The  American  or  the  Australian  child  well  illustrates 
the  change  that  is  taking  place.  It  is  increasingly 
dangerous  to  give  children  dogmatic  or  mystic 
instruction  in  rules  of  conduct,  nor  is  it  in  the  least 
necessary  to  base  this  important  part  of  their 
training  on  disputable  grounds.  Every  quality  of 
character  that  is  inculcated  may  be  related  to  the 
child's  actual  or  future  experience  of  life,  and  will 
find  an  ample  sanction  therein.  Life  is  full  of 
material  for  such  lessons :  material  far  richer  and 
easier  of  assimilation  than  the  doings  of  an  ancient 
Oriental  people  with  a  different  code  of  morals. 
Let  these  lessons  of  history  and  contemporary 
life  be  developed,  let  the  child  learn  in  plain  human 
speech  the  social  significance  of  justice  and  honour, 
avoiding  namby-pamby  dissertations  on  the  beauty 
of  virtue,  and  there  will  be  placed  in  the  mind  of  the 
young,  not  an  exotic  plant  which  the  child  will  be 
tempted  to  eradicate,  but  a  germ  which  will  grow 
and  bear  fruit  under  the  influence  of  its  own 
experience. 

The  modern  ideal  of  education  further  implies 
that  the  State  shall  provide  higher  tuition  for  those 


230  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

youths  and  maidens  to  whom  it  will  be  profitable 
to  impart  it.  Scholastic  evolution  is  advancing  so 
rapidly  in  this  direction  that  the  ideal  hardly  needs 
vindication.  Seventeen  hundred  years  ago  such  a 
"  ladder  of  education  "  existed  in  Europe  ;  from 
the  municipally-endowed  elementary  school  the 
promising  youth  could  pass,  through  secondary 
colleges,  to  the  imperial  schools  at  Rome.  Had 
that  model  been  retained  and  improved  instead  of 
being  abandoned  for  fourteen  centuries,  Europe 
would  be  in  an  immeasurably  greater  state  of 
efficiency  than  it  is.  We  are  restoring  and  improv- 
ing the  pagan  model,  and  there  are  signs  that  in 
time  we  shall  have  a  complete  system  of  secondary, 
technical,  and  higher  education,  quite  apart  from 
the  schools  in  which  the  children  of  more  or  less 
wealthy  parents  learn  their  traditional  virtues  and 
vices.  If  we  have  also  some  means  by  which  able 
children  whose  talent  has  escaped  the  academic  eye 
(of  which  we  have  many  classical  instances)  may  in 
later  years  have  a  chance  of  recognition,  we  shall 
exploit  the  intelligence  of  the  race  with  splendid 
results. 

The  cost  of  this  great  reform  need  not  intimidate 
us.  Enormous  sums  of  money  have  been  given  (by 
men  like  Mr.  Carnegie)  or  bequeathed  for  the 
purpose,  and  the  admirable  practice  will  continue. 
But  we  need  a  searching  revision  of  educational 
endowments,  foundations,  scholarships,  etc.  There 
is  strong  reason  to  suspect  that  estates  which  are 
now  of  great  value  are  not  applied  to  the  scholastic 


SHAMS  OF  THE  SCHOOL  231 

purposes  for  which  they  were  intended,  or  are  badly 
administered,  or  are  used  in  giving  gratuitous  or 
cheap  education  to  the  children  of  comfortable 
parents  who  secure  favour  or  influence.  A  con- 
solidation of  all  the  endowments  which  had  not  in 
their  origin  an  express  sectarian  purpose  would 
provide  a  fund  to  which  the  State  and  municipal 
authorities  need  add  little.  The  scheme  would 
bring  some  order  into  our  chaos  of  schools  and 
colleges,  and,  while  the  more  snobbish  establish- 
ments would  continue  to  preserve  their  pupils  from 
the  society  of  the  children  of  tradesfolk,  and  would 
waste  valuable  resources  on  uncultivable  minds,  the 
youth  of  the  nation  generally,  of  both  sexes,  would 
be  developed  to  the  full  extent  of  its  capacity. 
These  things  have  a  monetary  value.  A  distin- 
guished historical  writer  told  me  that,  on  sending 
his  son  to  Sandhurst,  he  proposed  that  they  should 
study  together  the  campaigns  of  Napoleon.  The 
youth  presently  informed  him  that  the  traditions  of 
Sandhurst  did  not  allow  them  to  do  serious  work 
outside  the  general  routine.  A  few  years  later  we 
heard  the  details  of  our  South  African  War. 

It  will  be  a  part  of  this  increased  efficiency  to  rid 
our  secondary  and  higher  schools  of  clerical  domina- 
tion. It  is  futile  to  say  that  the  clergyman  must 
represent  morals  and  religion  in  the  school.  His 
record  as  a  moralist  during  fifteen  hundred  years 
does  not  recommend  his  services.  Even  to-day 
public  schools  which  retain  the  tradition  of  clerical 
masters  are  deplorable  from  the  moral  point  of 


232  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

view.  Some  of  them  are  nurseries  of  a  vice  which, 
unless  it  be  discontinued  when  the  youth  goes  out 
into  the  world,  may  bring  on  him  one  of  the  most 
degrading  sentences  of  our  penal  law.  The  clerical 
method  of  character-training — one  admits,  of  course, 
great  occasional  personalities — has  little  influence 
on  these  things.  Public-school  boys,  and  especially 
young  men  at  our  universities,  know  that  every 
syllable  which  the  preacher  addresses  to  them  is 
disputed,  and  no  other  ground  of  right  and  healthy 
conduct  is,  as  a  rule,  impressed  on  them.  Many 
will  know  that  the  grossest  opinion  of  the  clergy 
themselves  is  current  in  our  public  schools  and  older 
universities,  and  is  embodied  in  numbers  of  scur- 
rilous stories.  The  position  of  the  clergyman  in  our 
educational  world  is  false.  He  is  there  for  the  same 
reason  that  the  Bible  is  in  the  elementary  school : 
in  the  interest  of  the  Churches.  We  have  improved 
mental  education  enormously  since  it  ceased  to  be 
a  monopoly  of  the  clergy.  Possibly  we  will  make 
a  similar  improvement  in  character-training ;  we 
can  hardly  do  it  with  less  success  than  they  have 
done. 


CHAPTER    IX 

THE   EDUCATION   OF  THE   ADULT 

IF  it  be  granted  that  it  is  the  interest  and  the  duty 
of  a  nation  to  develop  the  intelligence  of  its  people, 
we  must  conclude  that  the  work  is  only  half  done, 
or  not  half  done,  by  even  an  ideal  system  of  what 
is  commonly  called  education.  I  am  assuming  that 
a  time  will  come  when  no  youth  or  maiden  will 
enter  workshop  or  office  before  the  age  of  seventeen, 
if  not  eighteen ;  and  that  the  better  endowed 
minority  of  our  children  will,  without  regard  to 
their  private  resources,  be  promoted  to  secondary, 
technical,  and  higher  schools.  This  minority  will, 
on  the  whole,  need  no  further  attention.  Cultural 
interest  and  professional  stimulation  will  ensure 
that  their  studies  continue.  But  the  majority  will 
fall  lamentably  short  of  the  ideal  of  developed  and 
alert  intelligence.  The  added  three  or  four  years 
will  be  enormously  valuable  to  the  teacher,  but  in 
the  majority  of  cases  the  intellectual  interest  will 
still  be  so  feeble  that  the  distractions  of  life  will  at 
once  extinguish  it. 

If  we  speak  of  our  actual  world,  not  of  an  ideal 
world,   this  fact  is  too  patent  to  need  proving. 

»J3 


234  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

Forty-five  years  ago  a  band  of  enthusiasts  fought 
for  the  establishment  of  universal  elementary  educa- 
tion. The  survivors  of  that  band  confess  that  the 
splendid  results  they  anticipated  have  not  been 
secured.  One  is,  indeed,  tempted  sometimes  to 
wonder  whether  there  was  not  more  zeal  for  culture 
among  the  workers  half  a  century  ago  than  there 
is  to-day.  When  you  listen  to  a  conversation,  of 
workers  or  of  average  middle-class  people,  on 
politics  or  theology  or  some  other  absorbing  topic, 
you  are  astounded  at  the  slender  amount  of  personal 
thinking  and  the  slavery  to  phrases  which  they 
have  heard.  Their  minds  seem  to  resemble  the 
screen  of  a  kaleidoscope,  on  which  the  coloured 
phrases  they  have  read  in  j  ournals  or  cheap  literature 
weave  automatic  patterns.  I  speak,  of  course,  of 
the  mass.  I  have  given  hundreds  of  scientific 
lectures  to  keen  audiences  of  working  men,  and  I 
know  that  tens  of  thousands  of  them  have  excellent 
collections  of  familiar  books.  But  the  result  of 
forty-five  years  of  education  is  far  from  satisfactory. 
It  was  thought  that,  when  the  people  learned  to 
read,  and  the  ideas  of  an  Emerson  or  a  Darwin 
could  be  appropriated  by  any  man  of  moderate 
endowment,  the  level  of  the  race  would  rise 
materially.  It  has  not  risen  as  much  as  was 
expected.  The  phrases  are  learned  and  repeated  : 
the  ideas  are  not  vitally  assimilated,  because  the 
intellect  is  not  sufficiently  developed. 

Two  classes  of  people  will  impatiently  retort  that 
there  is  no  need  for  further  development.     One 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  ADULT    235 

class  consists  of  those  who  dread  a  higher  intelli- 
gence in  the  workers  because  it  leads  to  discontent 
with  their  condition.  To  which  one  may  reply  that 
this  concern  comes  too  late.  One  needs  little  in- 
telligence to  perceive  the  inequalities  of  the  dis- 
tribution of  wealth.  The  workers  of  the  world 
have  perceived  it,  and,  although  only  an  extreme 
Socialist  minority  demands  equalisation,  the  mass 
of  the  workers  demand  a  higher  reward.  Midway 
between  Australia  and  England,  on  the  deck  of  a 
liner,  I  heard  a  group  of  middle-class  men  and 
women  contrasting  the  menace  of  the  Australian 
workers  with  the  industrial  content  of  the  mother- 
country.  We  landed,  to  find  from  the  journals 
that  the  whole  United  Kingdom  was  punctuated 
by  strikes,  agitations,  and  demands.  It  is  too  late. 
A  distinguished  Belgian  prelate  was  taken  into 
a  large  foundry,  and,  observing  the  workers,  he 
impulsively  cried  :  "  What  a  slave's  life  !  "  "  Hush, 
they  will  hear  you, "  said  the  manager.  In  repeating 
the  experience  he  added  :  "  They  have  heard  :  it 
is  too  late."  It  will  be  better  now  if,  in  the  in- 
dustrial struggle  of  the  future,  there  is  intelligence 
as  well  as  principle  on  both  sides.  If  any  large 
proportion  of  work  in  the  human  economy  requires 
the  sacrifice  of  the  intelligence,  there  is  something 
wrong  with  the  work. 

Curiously  enough,  the  other  class  of  people  who 
are  impatient  of  the  design  to  stimulate  their 
minds  consists  of  the  mass  of  the  workers  them- 
selves. After  eight  or  nine  or  ten  hours  of  heavy 


236  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

muscular  work  every  day,  they  say,  they  have 
no  inclination  or  fitness  for  serious  literature, 
serious  lectures,  or  serious  art.  They  prefer  a 
drink,  a  bioscope,  a  music-hall.  Eight  hours' 
work,  eight  hours'  play,  eight  hours'  sleep  ;  that 
is  the  ideal.  A  very  natural  and  symmetrical 
ideal,  but — it  is  just  the  ideal  which  "  the  capitalist  " 
wishes  them  to  cultivate,  and  this  might  suggest 
reflection.  Someone  will  do  the  thinking  while 
they  play.  Democratic  government  is  a  mischief 
and  a  blunder  unless  Demos  is  capable  of  thinking. 
If  the  workers  of  the  world  have  an  ambition  to 
control  their  destinies,  they  must  realise  that  their 
destinies  are  things  too  large  and  complex  and 
important  to  be  controlled  by  men  with  sleepy 
brains.  There  is  no  solution  of  the  broad  social 
problem  of  this  planet  which  does  not  imply  that 
every  adult  man  and  woman,  of  normal  powers,  shall 
be  alert  and  informed  and  self-assertive  enough 
to  take  an  intelligent  part  in  its  administration. 

Therefore,  it  seems  to  many  that  a  scheme  of  educa- 
tion which  ceases  to  operate  at  the  age  of  fourteen, 
which  teaches  children  to  read  and  has  no  further 
concern  with  what  they  read,  which  impresses 
on  their  cortex  a  mass  of  facts  of  no  utility  or 
stimulation,  is  not  a  fulfilment  of  a  nation's  duty, 
or  a  proper  consideration  of  a  nation's  interest. 
The  grander  lessons  of  history,  the  more  impressive 
truths  of  science,  the  vital  features  of  economics 
and  sociology,  the  ennobling  characters  of  fine  art, 
cannot  be  even  faintly  impressed  on  the  young 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  ADULT    237 

mind.  Yet  they  can  be  impressed  on  the  minds 
of  nearly  all  adults,  and  it  would  be  an  incalculable 
gain  to  the  race  if  they  were.  What  is  being  done, 
and  what  might  be  done,  to  effect  this  ? 

The  nation  at  present  leaves  it  to  commercial 
interest  and  to  philanthropy  to  carry  out,  in  some 
measure,  this  important  function,  and  we  may  at 
once  eliminate  the  commercial  interest.  It  supplies, 
at  a  proper  profit,  what  is  demanded.  A  minority 
ask  for  cheap  works  of  science  and  art  and  history, 
and  several  admirable  series  of  manuals  and  serial 
publications  are  supplied.  A  majority,  an  over- 
whelming majority,  asks  only  to  be  entertained, 
and  there  is  a  mighty  flood  of  novels  and  amusing 
works,  a  rich  crop  of  music-halls  and  bioscope- 
shows  and  theatres  and  skating  rinks.  It  will 
readily  be  understood  that,  regarding  happiness 
as  the  ultimate  ideal,  I  regard  entertainment  as 
a  proper  part  of  life.  The  comedian  and  the  story- 
teller and  the  professional  football-player  are  ren- 
dering good  service,  and  it  is  intellectual  snobbery 
to  murmur  that  they  "  merely  entertain  "  people. 
A  good  deal  of  nonsense  is  written  about  sport 
and  entertainment.  Many  of  us  can,  with  pleasant 
ease,  suspend  a  severely  intellectual  task  for  a  few 
hours  to  witness  a  first-class  football  match.  One 
wonders  if  some  of  the  ascetics  who  speak  about 
"  mudded  oafs  "  and  "  the  football  craze  "  are 
aware  that  the  game  (except  for  professional  players) 
occupies  merely  an  hour  and  a  half  a  week  (or 
alternate  week)  for  little  more  than  half  a  year. 


238  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

The  mischief  is  that  so  much  of  our  entertain- 
ment appeals  to  and  fosters  a  state  of  mind  or 
taste  which  does  exclude  culture.     We  have  to-day 
an  army  of  puritan  scouts,  watching  our  music- 
halls  and  cinematograph  films,   our  picture-cards 
and  novels,    our  open   spaces  by  night  and   our 
bathing-beaches  by  day,  calculating  minutely  what 
amount  of  dress  or  undress  or  sexual  allusion  they 
may  permit.     Certainly  we  need  coercion  in  these 
matters.     No  one  who  moves  amongst  our  average 
people,  in  any  rank  of  society,  can  fail  to  recognise 
that  there  would  be  in  time  a  volcanic  outpour  of 
sexuality  if  we  did  not  impose  restriction.     Whether 
this  chaste  pruriency  of   the  modern  Churches  is 
an  admirable  thing,  and  whether  its  hirelings  are  a 
desirable  supplement  to  the  police-force,  need  not 
be  discussed  here  ;    but  what  amuses  one  is  their 
intense  zeal  to  detect  the  narrowest  fringe  of  im- 
propriety  and    their   utter   obtuseness   to   graver 
matters.     I  have  sometimes,  when  waiting  before 
a  lecture  in  the  dressing-room  of  a  variety  theatre, 
been  confronted  with  a  notice  that  "  the  curtain 
will  be  rung  down  on  any  artist  who  says  '  Damn ' 
or  mentions  the  lodger,"  or,  more  candidly  (in  the 
Colonies) :   "  Don't  swear.     We  don't  care  a  damn, 
but  the  public  does."     The  general  public  would, 
if  it  were  consulted,  probably  make  the  same  reply 
as  the  framers  of  the  notice,  and  would  blame  the 
police  for  the  restriction  of  liberty.     There  is,  in  a 
word,  an  appalling  poverty  of  taste  in  the  general 
public,  and  it  pays  the  purveyor  of  entertainment 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  ADULT    239 

to  adapt  his  wares  to  it  as  far  as  the  police  will 
permit.  To  this  lamentable  lack  of  taste  and 
culture  (in  the  broad  sense)  officials  and  moralists 
are  entirely  indifferent  as  long  as  the  comedienne 
does  not  refer  to  the  seventh  commandment.  The 
public  may  be  as  ignorant  and  vulgar  as  they  like, 
but  they  must  not  give  expression  to  a  natural 
effect  of  this. 

The  music-hall  and  the  bioscope  are  the  great 
academies  of  our  people  to-day,  and  their  work  is 
largly  stupefying.  Sentimental  songs  of  the  most 
vapid  description  alternate  with  patriotic  songs  of  a 
medieval  crudeness  and  humorous  songs  which  might 
have  appealed  to  a  prehistoric  intelligence.  Blood- 
thirsty melodramas,  sensational  scenes,  and  infinite 
variations  of  "  The  girl  who  did  what  we  are  for- 
bidden to  talk  about,"  evoke  and  inflame  elementary 
emotions  at  the  lowest  grade  of  culture.  Clergymen 
give  certificates  of  high  moral  efficacy  to  crude 
representations  of  passion  in  high  life  which  are 
designed  to  appeal  to  raw  feelings.  The  posters 
alone — the  eccentric  costumes  and  daubed  faces 
and  attempts  at  novelty  in  the  way  of  leering — 
warn  away  people  of  moderate  taste  or  intelligence. 
The  bioscope  is  almost  as  bad.  Apart  from  a  few 
excellent  travel  and  scenic  and  scientific  pictures, 
the  show  is  a  mass  of  crude  faking  and  boorish 
horse  -  play  which  presupposes  an  elementary 
intelligence  in  the  spectators.  Pictorial  post-cards 
add  to  the  monstrosities  and  puerilities  of  this  kind 
of  public  education,  and  a  large  proportion  of  the 


240  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

stories  published,  especially  in  the  periodicals 
which  are  read  by  girls  and  boys  and  uneducated 
women,  fall  in  the  same  category.  We  may  trust 
that  the  idea  will  not  occur  to  anyone  of  making 
a  collection  of  our  picture-cards,  films,  music-hall 
posters,  novelties,  etc.,  for  preservation  as  typical 
amusements  of  the  twentieth  century. 

It  is  stupid  to  watch  this  lamentable  exposure 
of  our  low  average  of  culture  week  by  week  with 
complete  indifference  until  more  underclothing  is 
displayed  than  we  think  proper.  The  bioscope 
and  music-hall — I  speak  of  the  majority — are  not 
merely  entertaining  ;  they  are  undoing  the  work  of 
the  educator.  They  are  fostering  the  raw  and 
primitive  emotions  which  it  is  the  task  of  education 
to  refine  and  bring  under  control,  debasing  public 
taste,  and  appealing  to  a  standard  which  is  essentially 
unintellectual.  The  idea  that  fun  may  be  utterly 
stupid  and  crude,  provided  it  is  "  clean,"  is  the  idea 
of  a  narrow-minded  fanatic,  an  enemy  of  society. 

When  we  pass  to  the  next  cultural  level  of  enter- 
tainment— the  better  music-hall,  the  metropolitan 
type  of  theatue,  the  concert,  the  novel,  etc. — we 
have  a  vast  provision  of  entertainment  which 
amuses  or  interests  without  cultural  prejudice ; 
rising  at  times  to  a  positive  measure  of  artistic 
education  or  intellectual  stimulation.  Two  things 
only  need  be  noticed  here.  The  first  is  the  stupidity 
of  the  kind  of  censorship  which  we  tolerate  ;  of 
which  little  need  be  said,  since  it  is  generally  recog- 
nised. The  amateur  moral  censorship  of  art  reaches 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  ADULT    241 

the  culmination  of  its  absurdity  in  our  dramatic 
inquisition.  The  dramatist  may  deal  with  sex- 
passion  as  pruriently  and  provokingly  as  he  likes, 
provided  he  leaves  enough  to  the  spectator's  facile 
imagination  ;  but  he  must  not  attempt  to  raise 
love  as  an  intellectual  issue.  Our  people  may  feel 
love  :  they  must  not  think  about  it  as  a  serious 
problem. 

The  other,  and  more  needed  observation,  regards 
the  novel.  There  are  novels  of  fine  artistic  value, 
like  those  of  Phillpotts :  novels  of  great  intellectual 
use,  like  those  of  Wells  :  and  novels  of  a  general  and 
more  subtle  educational  value,  like  those  of  Meredith. 
There  are  novels  which,  like  the  melodrama, 
counteract  education  by  their  low  standard  of  art 
and  intelligence,  and  there  are  novels — the  great 
majority  —  which  entertain  without  prejudice. 
Since  we  have  as  much  right  to  be  entertained  as 
to  be  instructed,  novel-reading  is  a  normal  part  of 
a  normal  life.  Seeing,  however,  that  a  very  large 
proportion  of  the  community  read  nothing  but 
novels,  it  has  been  felt  that  the  novel  might  be 
used  as  a  vehicle  of  instruction,  and  the  didactic  or 
historical  novel  has  become  an  institution.  Many 
believe  that  they  are  being  educated  when  they  read 
this  literature. 

Against  this  comforting  assumption  it  is  necessary 
to  protest.  Even  the  greatest  historical  novelists, 
Dumas  and  Scott,  have  taken  remarkable  liberties 
with  the  known  facts,  and  added  to  the  picture  of 
the  time  a  mass  of  imaginative  detail.  Many 
17 


242  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

historical  novels,  like  Quo  Vadis  or  Kingsley's 
Hypatia,  misrepresent  personalities  or  periods  for 
controversial  purposes ;  and  the  bulk  of  modern 
historical  novels  are  worthless  jumbles  of  fact  and 
imagination.  It  is,  as  a  rule,  the  same  with  the 
sociological  novel.  You  must  know  the  facts  in 
advance — you  must  know  where  the  facts  end  and 
the  fiction  begins — or  else  merely  regard  the  book 
as  a  form  of  entertainment.  Lately  I  read  a 
serious  historical  work,  by  a  distinguished  writer, 
in  which  Hypatia  (who  was  fifty  or  sixty  years  old 
when  she  was  murdered)  is  described  as  a  "girl- 
philosopher  "  ;  clearly  because  Kingsley,  for  con- 
troversial purposes,  thought  fit  in  his  novel  to  make 
her  a  young  and  rather  foolish  maiden.  Thousands 
of  people  take  their  convictions  from  "  novels  with 
a  purpose,"  especially  religious  or  sociological  novels, 
without  reflecting  that  the  author  may  legitimately 
give  them  either  fact  or  fiction.  Such  novels  are 
often  profoundly  mischievous.  A  conscientious 
didactic  novelist  like  Mr.  Wells  aims  rather  at 
raising  issues  and  stimulating  reflection,  and  in  this 
Mr.  Wells  has  done  splendid  service.  Others  have 
done  equal  dis-service,  and  have  used  artificially 
constructed  characters  for  the  purpose  of  raising 
prejudice  against  certain  ideas,  or  have  misled  by  a 
calculated  mixture  of  fact  and  fiction.  It  was  in 
recommending  to  the  public  one  of  these  novels — an 
exceptionally  silly  and  crude  piece  of  work — that 
the^Bishop  of  London  described  Christianity  as 
"  woman's  best  friend." 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  ADULT    243 

Religious  literature  is  particularly  offensive  in  this 
respect,  but  I  will  give  special  consideration  to  it 
later.  Our  press-criticism  of  books  is  a  very  im- 
perfect system  of  checking  the  vagaries  and  pre- 
judices of  authors.  The  criticisms  are  very  fre- 
quently marked  by  ignorance  of  the  subject  and  by 
personal  or  doctrinal  hostility  to  the  author,  while 
the  more  learned  and  conscientious  journals  often 
show  the  most  ludicrous  pedantry.  I  once  published 
a  novel,  pseudonymously,  and  was  amused  to  read 
in  a  London  weekly,  which  takes  great  pride  in  the 
smartness  of  its  reviews,  that  the  author  had  neither 
an  elementary  knowledge  of  the  art  of  writing  nor 
an  elementary  acquaintance  with  the  subject  on 
which  he  wrote.  I  had  already  at  that  time  written 
about  twenty  volumes,  and  I  had  had  twelve  years' 
intimate  experience  of  the  monastic  life  with  which 
the  book  was  concerned.  Mr.  Clement  Shorter,  not 
knowing  the  author,  had  generously  described  the 
book  as  "  a  brilliant  novel."  On  another  occasion 
an  historical  work  of  mine  was  gravely  censured, 
though  no  specific  errors  were  noted  in  it,  by  our 
leading  literary  organ,  on  the  ground  that  I  was 
not  an  expert  on  the  period.  I  looked  up  the  same 
journal's  critique  of  a  work  written  on  the  same 
historical  period  by  an  academic  authority,  and 
published  by  his  university,  and  I  found  that, 
though  there  were  dozens  of  errors  in  the  work,  it 
had  passed  the  censor  with  full  honours.  I  add 
with  pleasure  that  some  of  the  most  generous  notices 
of  my  works  have  appeared  in  papers  (such  as  The 


244  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

Daily  Telegraph  and  The  Spectator)  to  which  my 
ideas  must  be  repugnant.  But  most  literary  men 
agree  with  me  that  reviewing  is,  to  a  large  extent, 
prejudiced  and  incompetent,  and  few  of  us  would 
cross  a  room  to  read  ordinary  press-notices  of  our 
books. 

One  might  extend  this  criticism  to  the  general 
work  of  the  press  as  the  great  popular  educator. 
We  must,  however,  reflect  that  the  press  is  hampered 
by  restrictions  which  the  public  ought  to  bear  in 
mind  :  a  journal  is  always  a  commercial  transaction 
with  a  particular  section  of  the  public,  and  it  is 
generally  pledged  to  political  partisanship.  It  is 
only  just  to  remark  that  this  materially  restricts 
the  educational  ambition  of  many  journalists.  The 
public  themselves  are  to  blame  that  a  large  section 
of  our  press  devotes  so  much  space  to  sensational 
murders,  adulteries,  burglaries,  royal  births  and 
marriages,  wars  and  other  crimes  and  follies.  Sun- 
day journals  often  contain  twenty  columns  of  this 
rubbish,  and  the  worst  parts  of  it  are,  with  the 
most  disgusting  hypocrisy,  thrust  into  prominence 
by  especially  large  head-lines  announcing  "  A 
Painful  Case."  One  imagines  the  working  man 
spending  five  or  six  hours  of  the  Sabbath  reading 
this  sort  of  stuff.  Great  and  grave  things,  which 
he  ought  to  know,  are  happening  all  over  the  world, 
but  he  must  have  sharp  eyes  if  he  is  to  catch  the 
obscure  little  paragraphs  which — if  there  is  any 
reference  at  all — tell  him  how  many  have  been  put 
to  death  in  Russia  in  the  last  quarter,  or  how  the 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  ADULT    245 

republican  experiment  fares  in  Portugal,  or  how 
democracy  advances  in  Australia  or  the  United 
States.  The  space  is  needed  for  pictures  of  burned 
mansions  and  notorious  murderers  and  the  common- 
place relatives  of  politicians,  for  verbatim  reports 
of  divorce  and  criminal  cases,  for  inquests  and 
royal  processions,  and  for  the  magnificent  speeches 
of  Cabinet  Ministers  and  would-be  Cabinet  Ministers. 
This  stricture  applies  to  the  press  generally.  How 
far  it  sacrifices  to  these  meretricious  purposes  the 
serious  function  of  educating  the  public  has  been 
painfully  impressed  on  us  by  recent  experience. 
Only  one  or  two  journals  in  England  surpassed 
our  drowsy  politicians  in  sagacity  and  foresight. 
Though  an  extensive  reader  of  German  literature 
(scientific  and  historical),  it  had  never  been  my 
business  to  follow  political  or  military  utterances ; 
yet,  when  the  war  broke  out  and  I  looked  back  on 
Germany's  enormous  output  in  this  department,  I 
realised  that  there  had  been  in  London  for  a  year 
or  two  enough  German  literature  to  convince  any 
moderate  observer  that  war  was  fast  approaching 
—and  this  was  only  a  fragment  of  an  enormously 
larger  literature.  Our  press  had  ridiculed  the  one 
or  two  men  and  journals  who  warned  the  public  of 
the  danger.  Further,  when  it  transpired  that  our 
Government  had  met  the  crisis  with  painful  slowness 
and  inefficiency,  nearly  the  whole  press  again  con- 
spired to  check  criticism,  and  it  is  probable  that 
when  the  war  is  over  the  press  will  unite  with  the 
Churches  in  cultivating  a  foolish  and  dangerous 


246  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

contentment  on  the  part  of  the  public.  Our  press 
is,  in  fact,  very  largely  an  instrument  of  our  corrupt 
party-system.  It  never  initiates  reform,  and  it 
mirrors,  day  by  day,  all  the  crimes  and  follies  and 
maladies  of  our  social  order  without  the  least  resent- 
ment or  the  faintest  suggestion  of  reconstruction. 
Journals  are  constantly  appearing  with  the  professed 
intention  of  correcting  these  defects,  yet  they  are 
almost  invariably  spoiled  by  illiberalism  in  one 
or  more  departments  of  their  work,  or  by  gross 
exaggerations,  hysterical  language,  or  impracticable 
proposals. 

All  this  is  a  reflection  of  the  generally  low  state  of 
public  culture,  and  it  will  not  alter  until  we  devote 
serious  care  to  the  education  of  the  general  intel- 
ligence. We  begin  at  school  to  cultivate  the  child's 
imagination,  though  it  is  the  quality  of  a  child's 
mind  which  least  requires  stimulating  and  is  most 
in  need  of  subordinating  to  intelligence.  In  later 
years,  when  the  feeble  intellectual  stimulation  we 
have  given  is  exhausted,  we  have  to  appeal  to  the 
imagination  or  go  unheard.  "  I  have  not  read  a 
book  since  I  left  school,"  a  music-hall  artist  observed 
to  me.  At  twenty-five  he  had  become  incapable  of 
doing  more  than  look  at  illustrations,  as  he  had 
done  in  his  childhood.  We  go  on  until  we  make 
the  imagination  itself  feeble  on  its  constructive  side. 
Miles  of  generally  dauby  and  grotesque  posters  line 
our  streets  ;  tons  of  the  trashiest  literature  for  the 
young  are  discharged  from  marble  palaces  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Fleet  Street ;  novels  multiply 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  ADULT    247 

until  the  general  public  takes  the  words  author  and 
novelist  to  be  synonymous ;  and  the  daily  organ  of 
the  millions  tends  more  and  more  to  be  a  collection 
of  pictures  of  unimportant  events  and  persons,  with 
a  very  slender  and  peculiar  quantity  of  news. 

If  we  agree  that  democracy  will  advance  until 
the  majority  rule  in  reality,  and  not  merely  in 
theory,  these  things  must  concern  us.  It  is  of 
little  use  to  point  to  the  occasional  periodical  with 
small  circulation  which  endeavours  to  educate,  to 
the  occasional  educative  column  in  more  important 
journals,  or  to  the  occasional  lecture  or  serious 
concert  or  drama.  The  broad  fact  remains  that 
our  future  rulers  are  increasingly  encouraged  to 
refrain  from  mental  cultivation,  to  mistake  an 
appeal  to  the  imagination  for  knowledge,  and  to 
debase  their  taste  more  and  more  with  raw  repre- 
sentations of  crime  and  passion.  The  working 
man  reads  with  indignation  of  fashionable  ladies 
struggling  to  find  a  place  in  court  when  a  man  is 
being  tried  for  a  series  of  sordid  murders ;  and 
the  working  man  then  reads,  day  after  day,  a  three- 
column  verbatim  report  of  the  trial,  and  regrets 
that  there  is  not  more  of  it. 

In  order  to  meet  this  grave  public  need  an  earlier 
generation  invented  night-schools  and  Mechanics' 
Institutes.  Many  of  these  still  do  useful  work, 
but  their  number  shrinks  rather  than  increases. 
The  Co-operative  Movement,  again,  set  up  in  the 
early  days  a  fine  ambition  to  educate  its  adult 
members,  but  this  ambition  has  not  been  generally 


248  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

sustained  in  the  vast  modern  movement.  Hundreds 
of  lecture-societies  were  founded,  and  hundreds 
(about  seven  hundred  in  Great  Britain,  I  believe) 
exist  to-day  and  do  some  excellent  work  ;  but  many 
of  the  societies  which  adhered  most  faithfully  to 
the  educational  ideal  are  in  difficulties  or  extinct. 
The  travel-lecture  or  funny  lecture  and  the  "  popu- 
lar "  concert  encroach  more  and  more  on  the  serious 
programme.  Free  libraries  were  another  hope  of  the 
reformers  of  the  last  generation,  and  they  are  now 
endowed  by  millionaires  and  maintained  by  muni- 
cipalities. They  exhibit,  perhaps,  the  saddest 
perversion  of  social  ambition.  Neither  Mr. 
Carnegie  nor  any  serious  municipality  thinks  it  a 
duty  to  provide  gratuitous  entertainment,  but  at 
least  two-thirds  of  their  resources  are  really  devoted 
to  this.  The  enormously  greater  part  of  the  work 
of  free  libraries  is  to  beguile  the  idle  hours  of  young 
men  and  the  idle  days  of  young  women  with  novels 
that  rarely  contain  a  particle  of  intellectual  stimu- 
lation. 

Public  museums  were  another  device  for  educating 
the  mass  of  the  people,  and  they  have  largely  failed. 
There  has  been  in  recent  years  a  little  more  regard 
for  the  public,  as  well  as  for  students,  but  it  is 
still  painful  to  see  crowds  passing  with  bovine  eyes 
amidst  our  accumulated  treasures.  The  grouping 
and  labelling  are  still  too  academic  :  the  general 
scheme  and  the  immense  wealth  of  detail  daze  the 
eye  of  the  inexpert.  More  guides  and  lecturers, 
in  touch  with  and  informally  accessible  to  the 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  ADULT    249 

public,  and  a  closer  association  with  University 
Extension  and  Gilchrist  and  other  lectures,  are 
very  much  needed.  Saturday  afternoon  in  the 
British  Museum  is  a  melancholy  spectacle  of  wasted 
wealth.  A  small  model  museum,  designed  solely 
for  the  education  of  the  general  public,  would  be 
more  useful  in  this  respect  than  our  magnifi- 
cent national  museum.  Unfortunately,  the  small 
museums  copy  the  academic  defects  ol  the  larger. 
The  curator  of  one,  on  whom  I  urged  the  needs 
of  the  public,  replied  wearily  :  "  Well,  it  will  take 
me  three  years  to  arrange  my  Cephalopods,  and 
then  I  will  see  what  I  can  do." 

We  need  a  comprehensive  and  serious  organisa- 
tion and  development  of  our  resources  for  educating 
the  adult.  Our  Education  Department  needs  to 
throw  out  a  new  wing  with  the  purpose  of  pre- 
venting the  utter  waste  of  its  work  upon  young 
children.  Institutions  like  the  British  Museum 
ought  to  be  relieved  of  the  control  of  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury  and  one  or  two  other  somno- 
lent gentlemen,  and  made  the  centre  of  a  splendid 
and  energetic  system  of  popular  instruction  and 
stimulation.  From  such  centres  the  educational 
officials  (as  distinct  from  learned  curators  and 
youths  from  Oxford  and  Cambridge  who  look  upon 
the  public  as  a  nuisance)  might  issue  attractive  in- 
vitations and  publications,  and  be  prepared  to 
welcome  the  non-student,  either  with  "  showmen  " 
who  understand  the  public  mind  or  by  a  general  and 
affable  accessibility  of  the  whole  staff.  Municipal 


250  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAM 

museums  and  libraries  and  picture-galleries  could 
be  organised  on  similar  lines  by  the  Department, 
and  useful  private  foundations,  such  as  the  Bishops- 
gate  Institute,  could  be  invited  to  co-operate, 
without  interference  in  their  management.  The 
supply  of  novels  ought  to  be  restricted  to  the  great 
masters  of  every  countrj'  and  a  few  moderns.  The 
rich  supply  of  serious  literature  ought  to  be  made 
attractive  and  easily  accessible  to  the  public  by 
good  bibliographical  guidance  and  constant  lectures. 
These  things  are,  of  course,  being  done.  It  is  not 
so  much  the  local  officials  one  quarrels  with  as  the 
nation  and  its  leaders.  We  want  an  immense  co- 
ordination and  development  of  our  resources  and 
efforts  out  of  national  funds.  Lecture-societies 
and  all  kinds  of  educative  centres  and  institutes — 
there  are  thousands  in  the  country  —  need  to  be 
affiliated,  encouraged,  advised,  and  supplemented. 
The  State  should  not  even  shrink  from  publishing. 
The  trade  supplies  only  the  actual  demand  :  the 
State  must  create  a  new  and  larger  demand.  Music 
would  be  an  integral  part  of  this  scheme  of  educa- 
tion, and  here  again  we  have  a  large  material 
ready  for  organisation. 

Any  man  who  has  engaged  in  the  work  of  educat- 
ing and  stimulating  the  general  public  will  realise 
how  urgently  some  such  scheme  is  needed,  and  how 
splendid  a  service  it  would  render.  He  will  realise 
also  that  the  task  will  be  formidable.  I  do  not 
for  a  moment  conceive  the  general  public  as  thirst- 
ing for  culture.  That  is  very  largely  due  to  the 


251 

way  in  which  the  work  has  hitherto  been  done. 
The  recent  success  of  small  but  authoritative 
manuals  of  science  and  history,  and  of  several  cheap 
series  of  literary  works  of  high  value,  shows  that  a 
fairly  large  public  responds  to  every  enlightened 
effort  to  assist  them.  It  will  become  very  much 
larger  when  the  work  is  organised  on  a  national 
scale  and  conceived  as  a  really  important  function 
of  the  State.  That  even  then  the  majority  of  the 
nation  would  rush  to  the  reconstructed  libraries 
and  museums  and  lecture  or  concert-halls  no  one 
will  imagine  for  a  moment.  We  do  not  undo  in  a 
few  years  the  effect  of  centuries  of  evil  traditions. 
I  am  assuming,  however,  that  these  various  reforms 
I  am  discussing  will  proceed  more  or  less  simultane- 
ously, and  will  enormously  assist  each  other.  The 
abolition  of  war  would  release  rich  funds  for  educa- 
tional purposes :  the  reorganisation  of  industry 
would  provide  a  little  more  leisure  and  capacity  for 
mental  recreation :  other  reforms  would  give 
a  general  intellectual  stimulation.  Even  now, 
however,  much  of  this  work  could  be  done.  If  we 
think  it  sufficient  that  our  people  remain  in  a  con- 
dition of  elementary  literacy  and  half-developed 
intelligence,  if  we  fancy  that  the  race  will  advance 
because  it  sets  aside  a  special  caste  of  scholars  for 
the  promotion  of  culture,  we  may  regard  our  actual 
situation  without  concern.  But  if  we  desire  that 
general  alertness  of  mind  and  decision  of  character 
which  a  democratic  rule  implies,  we  cannot  be  in- 
different. Aristocrats  justly  rail  at  the  democracy 


252  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

of  Athens  and  Rome  ;  it  was  an  uneducated  demo- 
cracy— literate,  but  uneducated,  like  ours.  We 
need  to  advance,  if  we  are  not  to  recede  ;  and 
the  uplifted  race  of  the  days  to  come  will  honour 
the  generation  that  taught  men  the  compatibility 
of  culture  and  entertainment. 

I  am  speaking,  in  the  main,  of  the  mass  of  the 
workers,  but  it  would  be  entirely  unjust  to  insinuate 
that  they  alone  need  adult  education.  The  con- 
ventions of  social  life,  the  extraordinary  slavery  to 
fashions  and  artificial  rules,  betray  an  intellectual 
flabbiness  in  the  wealthier  members  of  society 
which  just  as  urgently  calls  for  stimulation.  We 
seem  at  times  quite  incapable  of  drawing  a  line 
between  acts  of  real  courtesy  and  taste,  which  imply 
a  certain  grace  or  delicacy  of  character,  and  con- 
ventional usages  which  have  no  rational  basis. 
The  insistence  on  these  conventional  usages  is  part 
of  that  general  slavery  to  false  traditions  which  I 
am  assailing. 

The  most  flagrant  instance  of  this  weakness  of 
mind  and  character  is  the  docility  with  which  we 
meet  changes  of  fashion  in  dress,  or  retain  eccentric 
forms  of  clothing.  Hardly  any  other  feature  so 
strongly  impresses  the  close  observer  with  the 
fact  that  the  race,  as  a  whole  (and  I  speak  only 
of  civilised  communities),  advances  little  in  in- 
telligence and  self-possession  in  spite  of  the  progress 
made  by  its  intellectual  experts.  One  would  say 
that  here,  especially,  we  need  a  strong  draught 
of  the  philosophy  of  Friedrich  Nietzsche, — the 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  ADULT    253 

gospel  of  self-assertion,  of  strong  personality,  of 
severe  reasoning, — but  I  have  not  observed  that 
our  modern  Nietzscheans  differ  much  from  their 
neighbours  in  such  matters.  Yet  the  commercial 
expansion  of  modern  times  is  making  this  tyranny 
of  fashion  more  ludicrous  than  it  ever  was 
before. 

The  fashion-plates  and  descriptions  contained  in 
ladies'  journals  have  always  provoked  the  furtive 
smile  of  the  male.  A  coterie  of  tradesmen,  who  are 
eager  to  promote  business,  and  of  wealthy  ladies 
who  are  equally  eager  to  show  that  their  purses 
are  unlimited,  decree  that  the  hat  or  costume  shall 
continually  vary  in  shape  and  colour.  The  Anglo- 
French  jargon  of  the  sartorial  journalist  then 
impresses  on  a  larger  circle  of  ladies  the  need  of 
alertness  and  the  horror  of  being  d6mod6e, — it 
would  be  proof  of  incapacity  to  say  "  out  of  fashion," 
— and,  as  the  season  approaches,  the  proclamation 
of  the  forthcoming  colour  or  model  is  awaited  with 
more  feverish  anxiety  than  the  announcement 
of  the  national  budget.  Schools  of  artists  are 
secretly  inventing  some  variation — the  wider  the 
variation  the  better — on  the  thousands  of  costumes 
which  have  already  graced  the  feminine  frame,  or 
discussing  bold  suggestions  of  reviving  an  ancient 
model  which  has  long  disappeared  even  from  the 
shops  of  wardrobe-dealers.  Privileged  ladies  rise 
in  prestige  by  obtaining  and  whispering  advance 
information.  At  length  the  shop-windows  blaze 
with  the  new  colour,  the  journals  depict  an  ingenious 


254  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

new  combination  of  edges  and  folds  and  puckers, 
and  womanhood  plunges  to  the  bottom  of  its  purse 
with  an  eagerness  to  avoid  the  suspicion  of  financial 
stringency ;  while  the  discarded  hats  and  dresses 
percolate  romantically  through  lower  strata  of 
society.  Is  it  not  good  for  trade  ? 

The  masculine  smile  is,  however,  wearing  thinner, 
as  the  absurd  despotism  is  now  almost  as  great 
among  the  stronger  sex.  Here  also  a  group  of 
commercial  mathematicians  evolve,  every  few 
months,  a  new  combination  of  brim  and  crown  and 
curve,  and  artists  design  new  patterns  of  cloth 
and  new  contours  of  garment,  and  tyrannical 
journalists  hold  up  to  public  execration  the  man 
of  means  or  position  who  dares  to  find  last  year's 
fashion  sufficiently  comfortable  or  decorative. 
"  Not  worn  now,  sir,"  says  the  shopman,  with 
indulgent  smile,  when  you  go  to  renew  the  hat  or 
coat  that  has  pleased  you.  The  bewildering  thing 
is,  not  that  manufacturers  should  be  eager  to  sell 
us  new  garments  every  few  weeks,  but  that  we 
bow  with  such  docility  to  this  ludicrous  fiction  of 
monarchy.  Long  trousers  or  short  trousers,  creased 
trousers  or  turned-up  trousers,  tight  coats  or  loose 
coats,  bowlers  or  trilbys — we  listen  submissively 
to  the  mandate,  without  the  least  consideration 
of  our  appearance  or  convenience. 

Indeed,  the  only  things  that  are  permanent  in 
this  extravagant  procession  of  fashions  are  the 
things  that  are  ugly,  inconvenient,  or  unhealthy, 
especially  on  the  masculine  side.  The  silk  hat 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  ADULT    255 

and  the  hard  felt  hat  linger  as  if  in  these  extra- 
ordinary creations  the  manufacturer  had  discovered 
the  ideal  head-covering.  The  swallow-tail  coat 
survives  as  if  aesthetics  could  advance  no  further 
in  the  attiring  of  wealthy  men  ;  even  the  buttons 
at  the  back,  to  which  our  fiery  ancestor  attached 
his  sword,  must  not  be  abandoned.  The  more 
comfortable  dinner-jacket  remains  a  privileged 
client  at  the  gate  until  some  audacious  peer  or 
prince  will  dispel  the  oppressive  reverence  for  the 
ancient  swallow-tail ;  and  peers  and  princes  know 
how  dangerous  it  is  to  tamper  with  the  spirit  of 
reverence.  The  starched  collar  and  shirt  are  as 
rigidly  prescribed  as  sacred  vestments  on  high 
occasions.  The  lady  must  still  hang  a  thick  and 
heavy  screen  of  cloth  from  her  hips  ;  first  having 
it  made  too  long  and  then  holding  it  up  with  her 
hand  in  order  to  escape  the  rich  organic  deposit 
on  our  streets  and  the  filth  with  which  we  suffer 
"  domestic  pets "  to  make  our  squares  hideous. 
Her  abdominal  organs  must,  if  one  may  credit 
the  marvellous  photographs  published  by  the 
corset-makers,  be  reconstructed  every  few  years 
to  accommodate  the  latest  scheme  of  body-curves. 
And  from  these  upper  reaches  of  our  intellectual 
world,  the  tyranny  descends  through  level  after 
level  of  the  community  until  it  lays  its  last  stern 
injunctions  on  the  junior  clerk  and  the  post-office 
assistant ;  or  passes  beyond  the  seas  and  compels 
the  Chinaman  or  the  Japanese  to  discard  his  beauti- 
ful robe  in  favour  of  a  frock-coat  and  silk  hat,  or  a 


256  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

striped  tweed  and  bowler,  when  he  presents  himself 
at  the  entrance-gate  to  civilisation. 

We  find  an  almost  equally  ludicrous  tyranny  of 
tradition  or  fashion  in  almost  every  part  of  the 
ritual  of  social  life.  Twenty  years  ago  I  issued 
from  a  rite-bound  monastery  into  the  free  life  of 
the  world,  to  find  it  similarly  swathed  in  ritual 
bonds.  I  purchased,  and  stealthily  mastered,  the 
"  ceremonial  "  (as  we  used  to  call  our  rite-book)  of 
this  new  world — a  book  on  "  etiquette" — and  led 
for  some  months  a  strenuous  and  exacting  life.  I 
entered  drawing-rooms  with  a  nervous  recollection 
of  about  a  score  of  rules  that  had  to  be  observed 
in  the  first  five  minutes,  while  the  ritual  of  the 
mundane  table  entailed  for  a  long  time  a  good  deal 
of  furtive  observation  of  my  fellows  and  trembling 
under  the  butler's  eye.  To  this  day  I  am  not  quite 
clear  at  what  precise  angle  the  elbow  must  stand 
in  shaking  hands.  Social  life  is  overspread  by  a 
network  of  these  prescriptions  of  the  unwritten 
law  or  the  judicial  decisions  of  the  aristocracy 
which  we  call  "  manners."  There  is,  as  a  rule,  so 
little  discrimination  between  the  formal  rules  of  an 
artificial  code  and  the  real  impulses  of  a  gentlemanly 
nature  that  one  has  often  to  listen  gravely  and 
silently  while  ladies  commend  the  "  perfect  manners  " 
of  a  man  whom  one  knows  to  be  an  adventurous 
ninny  or  a  beast. 

We  need  a  new  conception  of  civilisation,  a  sus- 
tained stimulation  of  the  intelligence  throughout 
life,  a  strong  infusion  of  the  Nietzschean  gospel  of 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  ADULT    257 

personality  and  self-assertion.  Some  day  we  shall 
regard  education  as  half  of  the  nation's  serious 
business,  and  will  devote  half  our  national  revenue 
to  it.  Let  it  not  be  imagined  that  this  suggests  a 
generation  of  dour  and  frightfully  serious  people  who 
never  smoke  or  play  bridge.  I  omit  the  function 
of  entertainment  only  because  it  has  never  been 
neglected.  The  supreme  business  of  a  State  is  to 
make  its  people  happy,  strong,  and  prosperous. 
We  shall  approach  the  ideal  when  we  abolish  war 
and  reduce  pauperism  and  crime  by  registering  all 
workers,  organising  all  industry,  reforming  justice 
and  the  penal  system,  and  removing  the  morally 
diseased. 

In  those  days  education  will  be  a  vast,  humane, 
scientific  scheme  for  guiding  the  growth  of  human 
embryos  into  industrious  and  orderly  citizens,  and 
enabling  the  adult  citizen  pleasurably  to  cultivate 
his  mind  and  taste.  The  development  of  each  child 
will  be  followed  as  the  development  of  a  pupil  is 
followed  in  the  Jesuit  Society,  but  with  a  care  to 
develop  its  individuality  fully,  in  harmony  with  the 
individualities  of  others.  The  child  will  not  pass 
from  the  sphere  of  the  educator  at  puberty,  with 
unformed  mind  and  character,  to  swell  the  great 
army  of  the  intellectually  listless.  Ruskin's  noble 
ideal  of  "as  many  as  possible  full-breathed,  bright- 
eyed,  and  happy-hearted  human  creatures  "  will 
replace  the  narrow  standards  of  our  Education 
Department,  with  which  the  child  can  have  no 
sympathy.  From  the  first  dawn  of  intelligence  it 
18 


258  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

will  feel  that  a  well-wishing  parent,  the  community, 
is  training  it  to  derive  all  the  joy  it  can  from  life, 
consistently  with  the  joy  of  others  and  the  day's 
duties,  when  its  turn  comes  to  don  the  toga  virilis. 
It  will  have  learned  by  that  time  that  a  develop- 
ment of  its  characteristic  human  powers  is  the 
richest  possession  it  can  have,  and,  coming  to  adol- 
escence, will  not  at  once  cast  aside  the  work  of  the 
teacher  and  dissipate  its  energy  in  the  crude 
indulgence  of  elementary  passions  and  futile  imagin- 
ings. Neither  child  nor  adult  will  shrink  from  work 
which  stimulates  the  intelligence  or  refines  the  taste, 
and  a  fine  alert  race,  impatient  of  untruth,  injustice, 
and  suffering,  will  set  itself  to  develop  fully  the 
resources  of  this  planet. 


CHAPTER   X 

THE   CLERICAL   SHAM 

THROUGHOUT  the  preceding  chapters  there  have 
been  resentful  or  disdainful  references  to  the 
Churches,  and  it  may  be  suspected  that,  in  assailing 
other  people's  prejudices,  I  have  cherished  and 
proceeded  upon  the  anti-clerical  prejudice.  A  very 
cursory  examination  will,  however,  suffice  to  show 
that  these  criticisms  were  sound  and  pertinent,  and 
are  not  due  to  some  mysterious  antipathy  to  the 
profession  to  which  I  once  belonged.  Few  of  those 
ugly  or  mischievous  traditions  which  form  what  I 
have  called  the  smothering  ash  in  the  intellectual 
activity  of  the  nation  have  not  the  general  support 
of  the  clergy.  Few  of  the  reforms  here  suggested 
do  not  meet  their  hostility.  They  constitute  one 
of  the  most  injurious  conservative  forces  in  modern 
life.  Their  bodies  are  strewn  over  the  whole  battle- 
field of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  not  one  in  a 
thousand  of  them  fought  on  the  side  of  progress. 
The  esteem  in  which  they  are  still  widely  held  and 
the  pretexts  by  which  they  guard  this  esteem  are 
the  last,  and  by  no  means  the  least,  of  those  shams 
which  hamper  our  advance  and  distract  our  energy. 


260  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

A  full  and  detailed  indictment  of  the  clergy  would 
fill  several  columns,  and  I  must  confine  myself  here 
to  two  or  three  considerations  which  are  at  once 
sufficiently  drastic  and  easily  demonstrable.  I  will 
therefore  be  content  to  show  : 

1.  That   the  clergy  claim  and   receive   a  large 
measure  of  public  confidence  on  the  ground  that 
they  are  the  guardians  of  the  most  sacred  and  bene- 
ficent truths,  yet  impose  on  the  less  educated  masses 
a  preposterous  collection  of  untruths,  or  statements 
'which  many  of  their  own  scholars,  and  most  lay 
scholars,  regard  as  untrue. 

2.  That  the  clergy  pose  as  the  most  sensitive  and 
effective  custodians  of  our  morals,  yet  their  pro- 
cedure is  unjust,  spiteful,  and  deceptive  to  an  extent 
which  would  not  be  tolerated  in  any  lay  profession. 

3.  That   the   clergy   represent   that   their   creed 
civilised  Europe  and  is  necessary  for  the  maintenance 
of  its  civilisation,  yet  their  influence  and  their  ideas 
retarded  the  evolution  of  European  civilisation  for 
centuries,  and  retard  it  to-day  wherever  they  have 
sufficient    power    or    are    immune    from   weighty 
criticism. 

In  enumerating  the  untruths  \vhich  are  still 
imposed  by  the  clergy,  I  will  not  linger  over  the  Old 
Testament.  When  you  censure  them  to-day  for 
attaching  a  sacred  value  to  this  collection  of  ancient 
Jewish  literature,  they  are  apt  to  reply  that  your 
criticism  is  forty  years  out  of  date.  Every  educated 
clergyman,  they  exclaim,  now  acknowledges  that 
the  Old  Testament  is  a  mixture  of  Babylonian 


THE  CLERICAL  SHAM  261 

legends,  primitive  tribal  traditions,  and  moral 
literature  of  a  naive  and  very  interesting  descrip- 
tion. Whether  this  statement  is  true  or  no  I  must 
leave  to  the  judgment  of  those  who  have  a  closer 
acquaintance  with  the  modern  clergy.  Only  two 
years  ago  I  was  persuaded,  in  an  idle  hour  on  a 
liner,  to  listen  to  a  sermon  delivered  by  a  young 
clergyman  who  had  just  issued,  with  honours,  from 
a  highly  modern  Wesleyan  college.  It  was  on  the 
miracles  of  Moses  in  the  wilderness — ingeniously 
relieved  by  references  to  such  other  miracles  as  the 
appearance  of  a  cross  to  Constantine — and  accepted 
them  as  literally  as  did  Peter  the  Hermit.  Re- 
ligious periodicals  and  books  and  parish-magazines 
suggest  that  there  is  a  good  deal  still  of  this  medieval 
credulity  ;  or  that,  at  least,  the  number  of  "  educated 
clergymen  "  must  be  somewhat  restricted.  But  let 
us  accept  the  assurance  that  the  educated  clergy 
do  accept  the  Old  Testament  at  its  true  historical 
value.  In  which  case  we  must  be  content  to  express 
our  surprise  that  no  clergyman  seems  to  have  the 
least  scruple  about  imposing  these  things  on  young 
children,  and  rustic  congregations,  and  less  cultivated 
races — than  which  there  is  no  more  cowardly  form 
of  untruth  :  and  that  some  of  the  most  notoriously 
unreliable  and  barbaric  pages  of  the  Old  Testament 
are  read,  Sunday  by  Sunday,  as  "  the  word  of  God  " 
in  all  the  Christian  Churches  of  the  world,  under 
the  official  orders  of  every  ecclesiastical  authority 
in  the  world. 

However,    since    these    cultivated    ecclesiastics 


262  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

smile  at  our  criticism  of  the  Old  Testament,  and 
see  nothing  improper  in  a  deception  of  the  ignorant, 
of  which  any  body  of  professional  laymen  would 
be  incapable,  let  us  turn  to  the  New  Testament. 
It  is  always  useful  to  consider  the  attitude  of  the 
clergy  in  its  historical  perspective.  A  hundred 
years  ago  they  were  defending  against  the  Deists 
the  absolute  truthfulness  of  the  Old  Testament. 
Christ  had  promised  the  Holy  Spirit  to  the  Church  : 
the  Holy  Spirit  could  not  possibly  tolerate  untruth  : 
therefore  the  teaching  of  the  Church  for  sixteen 
centuries  must  be  right.  Within  two  genera- 
tions they  have,  in  a  great  number,  abandoned  the 
inerrancy  of  the  Old  Testament,  without  abandon- 
ing the  Holy  Spirit.  It  seems  only  the  other  day 
when  Cardinal  Newman  pleaded  wistfully  that  we 
were  not  compelled,  under  pain  of  eternal  damna- 
tion, to  believe  that  Tobit's  dog  did  really  wag 
its  tail.  However,  outside  Scotland  clergymen  do 
seem  to  be  free  to  form  their  own  opinions  on  such 
allegations  as  that  a  whale  swallowed  a  man  and 
housed  him  for  three  days.  But  in  thus  admitting 
that  "inspiration"  was  consistent  with  error,  they 
have  put  the  New  Testament  also  in  the  hand  of 
the  critic. 

It  is  well  to  remember,  too,  that  this  modern 
criticism  of  the  Bible  is  conducted  almost  entirely 
by  divines.  The  average  churchgoer  has  an  im- 
pression that  these  terrible  people  who  are  known 
as  "  the  Higher  Critics  "  are  anti-clerical  laymen  : 
possibly  lascivious  gentlemen  whose  real  ambition 


THE  CLERICAL  SHAM  263 

is  to  undermine  the  salutary  discipline  imposed 
by  the  Churches.  They  are,  of  course,  on  the 
contrary,  nearly  all  ordained  clergymen,  and  very 
conscientious  clergymen,  of  some  branch  of  the 
Church.  Rationalists  never  criticise  the  Bible. 
It  has  become  a  branch  of  theological  scholarship. 
I  once — having  been  challenged  by  the  local  clergy- 
man, who  promptly  disappeared  when  I  arrived — 
gave  a  lecture  on  the  divinity  of  Christ  to  an  audience 
of  Presbyterian  artisans,  and  assured  them  that 
the  views  and  arguments  I  put  before  them  were 
taken  solely  from  the  works  of  distinguished  and 
highly  honoured  theologians.  Their  amazement 
and  horror  were  most  amusing.  They  had  not 
the  dimmest  idea  that  controversy  on  these  points 
lay  merely  between  advanced  and  not-advanced 
members  of  the  Christian  clergy  ;  and  that  their 
local  oracle  had,  in  effect,  merely  been  imposing  on 
them  the  opinions  of  the  less  learned  divines  in 
opposition  to  the  more  learned. 

And  this  fact  dispenses  me  from  the  need  to  drag 
the  reader  into  the  somewhat  tiring  labyrinth  of 
proof  and  disproof  which  these  warring  theologians 
have  constructed.  Nothing  could  be  further  from 
my  mind  than  the  presumptuous  and  immodest 
wish  to  brand  the  clergy  as  dishonest,  and  their 
beliefs  as  superstitious,  because  I  happen  to  regard 
those  beliefs  as  false.  Let  the  position  be  clearly 
understood.  A  study  of  the  Hibbert  Journal  or 
any  scholarly  theological  periodical,  or  of  any 
batch  of  learned  theological  works,  will  apprise 


264  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

any  person  that  what  are  ordinarily  conceived  to 
be  the  fundamental  positions  of  the  Christian 
religion  are  challenged  by  a  large  proportion  of 
distinguished  divines.  Pleas  of  "  reconstruction  " 
are  constantly  put  before  us  ;  and  at  the  Church 
of  England  Congress  in  1912  it  was  plainly  decided 
by  the  presiding  Archbishop  of  York  that  the 
"  advanced  "  theologians  had  a  legitimate  place  in 
the  Church.  It  is  not  a  question  of  a  few  con- 
troverted points  in  the  scheme  of  Christian  doctrine. 
No  point  that  is  specifically  Christian  is  left  un- 
challenged. The  divinity  and  miracles — especially 
the  miraculous  birth  and  resurrection — of  Christ, 
the  prophecies,  the  doctrine  of  heaven  and  hell, 
the  divine  guidance  of  the  Church,  the  fall  and 
redemption  of  man — all  these  characteristic  doc- 
trines are  gravely  disputed  within  the  frontiers 
of  the  Churches  themselves,  wherever  freedom  of 
expression  is  permitted. 

One  would  prefer  to  rely  on  theologians  only  in 
such  a  matter,  but  for  my  purpose  it  is  not  im- 
material to  add  that  outside  the  ranks  of  the  clergy 
scholarship  is  overwhelmingly  against  these  doctrines. 
There  has  been  a  good  deal  of  unsubstantial  talk 
about  the  beliefs  of  living  men  of  intellectual 
eminence,  but  resolute  efforts  have  been  made  of 
late  years  to  wring  from  them  a  profession  of 
Christian  belief,  and  the  result  has  been  so  meagre 
that  my  statement  is  fully  justified.  A  large 
number  declare  that  they  are  on  the  side  of  "  re- 
ligion." But  one  has  only  to  reflect  that  even 


THE  CLERICAL  SHAM  265 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge  warmly  professes  to  be  a  Christian 
— and  is,  in  fact,  welcomed  to  read  the  lessons  in 
church — to  see  how  little  is  conveyed  by  such 
expressions.  The  supreme  effort  of  the  Churches 
to  secure  adhesions  of  this  kind  is  probably  found 
in  Mr.  Tabrum's  Religious  Beliefs  of  Scientists  (1910), 
and  a  study  of  that  extraordinary  jumble  of  the 
living  and  the  dead,  the  distinguished  and  the 
obscure,  the  really  believing  Christians  and  the 
men  who  are  notoriously  not,  will  convince  any 
person  of  the  failure  of  the  Churches  to  obtain  the 
literal  adhesion  of  even  a  respectable  proportion  of 
our  distinguished  men  :  not  men  of  science  merely — 
it  is  a  stupid  error  to  suppose  that  the  decay  of 
faith  is  more  or  less  confined  to  them — but  men 
of  eminence  in  any  department  of  research  or 
intellectual  life.  Not  one  in  ten  of  them,  in  any 
educated  country  of  the  Christian  world  to-day, 
has  ever  professed  a  belief  in  the  doctrines  or 
statements  I  have  enumerated  ;  and  vague  pro- 
fessions of  a  regard  for  religion  do  not  concern  me 
here. 

Now  I  am,  as  I  said,  not  passing  any  personal 
opinion  on  these  Christian  teachings :  I  am  merely 
drawing  attention  to  their  position  in  modern  life. 
The  uncultivated  masses  and  the  body  of  the  clergy 
who  preach  to  these  masses  accept  the  miraculous 
birth,  death,  resurrection,  and  all  the  rest,  quite 
implicitly.  Here  and  there  one  finds  a  preacher 
who  dissents  ;  I  am  speaking  of  the  mass.  At  the 
middle  level  of  mental  culture,  among  both  clergy 


266  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

and  laity,  dissent  becomes  much  more  frequent. 
At  the  highest  level  of  theological  scholarship  it 
would  be  fair  to  say  that  the  dissenters  are  almost, 
if  not  quite,  as  numerous  as  the  believers  ;  and 
at  the  higher  level  of  lay  culture,  where  opinions 
may  be  more  freely  formed  and  expressed,  the 
dissenters  are  the  overwhelming  majority.  These 
men  may  be  theists  or  agnostics  or  Christians  in 
the  broader  sense  of  the  word,  but  the  great  majority 
of  them  do  not  believe  in  these  distinctively  Christian 
doctrines.  Yet  the  Churches,  wherever  they  are 
not  kept  in  check  by  this  critical  element,  invest 
these  doctrines  with  the  most  sacred  and  con- 
fident character :  stamp  them  as  unquestioned 
truths  on  the  minds  of  children  and  uneducated 
people,  and  put  them  forward  as  their  official  and 
authoritative  doctrines.  Nay,  there  is  hardly  a 
theologian  in  any  church  who  does  not,  when 
Christmas  and  Easter  annually  occur,  lend  his 
official  and  most  solemn  countenance  to  these 
discarded  or  disputed  traditions. 

This  would  not,  could  not,  be  done  in  any  branch 
of  lay  culture.  One  may  justly  insist  on  one's 
opinion  in  any  disputed  theme,  but  what  would 
be  the  attitude  of  our  leaders  of  culture  if  any 
authoritative  historian,  philosopher,  or  scientist 
attempted  to  impose  on  the  inexpert,  as  an  un- 
questioned truth,  some  older  opinion  which  a 
large  proportion  of  the  expert  regarded  as  false 
or  questionable  ?  What  would  they  say  to  a 
responsible  teacher  in  one  of  these  branches  of  lay 


THE  CLERICAL  SHAM  267 

culture  who  read  certain  statements  to  those 
who  trusted  him,  and  said  within  his  own  mind : 
'  This  is  what  people  thought  a  thousand  years 
ago  "  ?  A  clergyman  told  me  that  it  was  with 
this  mental  reservation  that  he  read  the  creeds  and 
gospels  on  Sundays.  What  would  a  philosopher, 
or  historian,  or  scientist  say,  if  his  department  of 
culture  were  an  organic  association  with  a  public 
and  authoritative  teaching,  and  this  public  teaching 
contained  statements  which  a  large  proportion 
of  the  leading  representatives  regarded  as  false  ? 
And  what  would  he  say  to  any  colleagues  who  urged 
him  to  allow  these  things  to  stand  because  a  change 
might  lessen  the  respect  of  the  general  public  for 
their  authority  ? 

This  situation  reflects  gravely  on  the  character 
of  Christian  ministers.  One  need  not  attempt  the 
futile  task  of  estimating  what  proportion  of  the 
clergy  believe  the  things  they  teach,  but  we  are 
constantly  receiving  proof,  especially  posthumous 
proof,  that  large  numbers  of  them  do  not.  I  have 
been  severely  rebuked  for  suggesting  such  a  thing, 
but  when  I  find  a  group  of  young  Oxford  divines 
saying  plumply,  in  an  important  recent  work 
(Foundations),  that  Christian  theology  is  "  out 
of  harmony  with  science,  philosophy,  and  scholar- 
ship," I  can  only  say  that  I  trust  a  sufficient  number 
of  the  clergy  are  educated  enough  to  know  it. 
The  majority  of  the  clergy  are,  however,  sufficiently 
ignorant  of  "  science,  philosophy,  and  scholarship  " 
to  be  in  good  faith,  and  one  ought  not  to  press  the 


268  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

indictment  in  this  sense.  At  sea  I  listen  occasion- 
ally, from  some  safe  distance,  to  sermons,  and  am 
amazed  that  even  a  fair  proportion  of  the  pas- 
sengers can  sit  with  grave  faces  during  the  delivery 
of  such  empty  and  ignorant  vapourings.  One 
reflects  that  all  over  the  Christian  world  priests 
are  similarly  dogmatising  on  the  most  profound 
problems  of  life,  and  not  one  in  a  thousand  of  them 
has  an  elementary  knowledge  of  those  branches 
of  modern  research  which  a  public  guide  ought  to 
command.  It  is  not  the  decay,  but  the  survival, 
of  churchgoing  that  perplexes  one. 

There  is,  however,  another  aspect  of  the  matter 
which  requires  serious  attention.  There  have  been, 
from  the  earliest  ages  of  the  Christian  Church,  men 
of  superior  intelligence  and  independent  character 
who  refused  to  submit  to  the  dictation  of  the  clergy. 
There  is  no  need  to  recall  how  the  clergy  dealt  with 
them.  Christian  ministers  have  in  this  regard  the 
most  abominable  record  in  the  whole  history  of 
civilised  religion.  Some  day  it  will  be  put  side 
by  side  with  that  of  the  priests  of  Saturn  or  of 
Quetzalcotl,  who  offered  human  sacrifices.  All 
that  need  be  noted  here  is  the  effrontery  with  which 
modern  clerical  writers  defend  their  predecessors. 
If  the  principles  on  which  they  base  their  defence 
are  valid,  they  would  again  be  compelled  to  burn 
heretics  if  they  obtained  power.  The  Church  of 
Rome  is  bold  enough  to  acknowledge  this.  Huxley 
tells  how  his  distinguished  Catholic  friend,  Dr.  J. 
Ward,  warmly  assented  to  this,  but  we  have  had 


THE  CLERICAL  SHAM  269 

since  then  a  more  authoritative  indication.  A  work 
of  Canon  Law  which  was  published  at  Rome  under 
the  "  enlightened  "  rule  of  Leo  XIIL,  and  with  his 
emphatic  personal  approval — the  Institutiones  Juris 
Canonici  of  Father  de  Luca — proves  at  length  the 
duty  of  the  Church  to  put  to  death  heretics. 

However,  we  will  not  waste  rhetoric  over  the 
past  or  over  an  impossible  future.  What  policy 
have  the  modern  clergy,  who  are  unable  to  induce 
the  State  to  burn  dissenters,  substituted  for  that 
of  their  predecessors  ?  A  policy  that  is,  to  a  very 
great  extent,  unjust,  spiteful,  and  dishonourable : 
a  policy  that,  in  the  very  name  of  truth,  is  marked 
by  a  more  flagrant  indifference  to  truth  than  you 
will  find  in  any  other  reputable  department  of 
modern  life. 

The  first  feature  of  this  policy  will  be  seen  by  any 
generally  informed  person  who  will  take  the  trouble 
to  read  a  batch  of  religious  works  or  periodicals. 
He  will  find  numbers  of  statements  of  the  most 
amazing  inaccuracy.  It  is,  no  doubt,  an  excep- 
tional thing  for  a  clerical  writer  to  make  a  statement 
which  is,  to  his  conscious  knowledge,  untrue.  The 
very  suggestion  seems  prejudiced,  but  is  there  a 
vast  difference  between  imposing  official  untruths 
on  ignorant  congregations  and  supporting  these 
untruths  by  others  ?  The  constant  repetition  of 
these  ancient  and  discredited  formulae  does  not 
induce  a  very  punctilious  temper  in  regard  to 
truth.  If  it  is  quite  lawful  to  repeat  from  the 
Old  or  the  New  Testament  historical  statements 


270  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

which  are  not  true  or  are  gravely  disputed,  why 
not  other  historical  statements  which  have  got 
into  ecclesiastical  currency  ? 

Usually,  however,  the  attitude  of  the  writer 
seems  to  be  one  of  culpable  indifference  to  the 
truth  or  untruth  of  the  statements  he  makes.  He 
finds  in  some  previous  writer  a  statement  which 
supports  his  case,  and  he  reproduces  it  without 
inquiry.  If  he  were  a  mere  layman,  engaged  in 
some  branch  of  profane  culture,  he  would  not  dare 
to  repeat,  without  further  inquiry,  statements  which 
he  found  made  in  his  own  sectarian  interest  by 
men  of  no  high  authority  or  original  scholarship. 
The  clergy,  however,  do  this  habitually,  and  one 
is  compelled  to  conclude  that  they  are  more  or 
less  indifferent  about  the  truth  of  their  assertions, 
if  those  assertions  are  favourable  to  religion.  Just 
as  I  write  the  press  reports  Dr.  R.  F.  Horton  telling 
a  congregation  that  a  British  regiment  was  saved 
at  Mons  by  the  appearance  of  a  legion  of  angels, 
and  assuring  his  audience  that  this  silly  myth  is 
"  repeated  by  so  many  witnesses  that  if  anything 
can  be  established  by  contemporary  evidence  it  is 
established."  The  story  has  gone  the  round  of  our 
pulpits  and  religious  press. 

I  am  speaking,  however,  from  a  particularly  wide 
experience  of  religious  literature.  For  thirty  years 
— ten  years  as  a  clerical  student  or  professor,  and 
twenty  years  as  an  interested  observer  of  religious 
controversy — I  have  devoted  much  time  to  books 
and  journals  of  this  kind,  and  I  repeat  that  there 


THE  CLERICAL  SHAM  271 

is  no  other  branch  of  literature  so  flagrantly  inaccur- 
ate and  unscrupulous.  A  religious  periodical  (The 
Christian  World,  2oth  August  1903),  in  the  course 
of  an  editorial  on  "  Candour  in  the  Pulpit  "  (meaning 
lack  of  candour  in  the  pulpit),  said  :  "A  foremost 
modern  theologian,  by  no  means  of  the  radical 
school,  has  recorded  his  significant  judgment  that 
one  of  the  main  characteristics  of  apologetic 
literature  is  its  lack  of  honesty ;  and  no  one  who 
has  studied  theology  can  doubt  that  it  has  suffered 
more  than  any  other  science  from  equivocal  phrase- 
ology." When  a  journal  which  has  to  consult  the 
feelings  of  a  large  backward  clientele  uses  this 
language,  we  may  conclude  that  the  situation  is 
really  bad.  In  fact,  not  even  political  journalism 
betrays  such  gross  carelessness  as  to  the  truth  of 
the  statements  with  which  it  assails  its  opponents. 
"  The  more  sacred  our  ideas  are,  the  more  savagely 
we  fight  for  them,"  said  Mr.  Chesterton,  defend- 
ing the  Inquisition.  Mr.  Chesterton's  own  genial 
method  (except  that  one  recognises  the  taint  in  his 
Victorian  Age  in  Literature)  disproves  his  aphorism. 
There  is  not  the  slightest  excuse  for  the  gross  pro- 
cedure of  religious  writers. 

I  have  in  various  works  and  articles  given  hundreds 
of  examples  of  this  procedure,  and  will  be  content 
to  deal  summarily  with  two  of  the  chief  types  of 
misrepresentation — those  relating  to  history  and 
those  relating  to  science.  The  classical  examples 
in  history  are  the  clerical  legends  about  the  morality 
of  the  pagans.  Here  the  clerical  lie  goes  on  its  way 


272  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

from  age  to  age  without  the  slightest  regard  of  the 
progress  of  historical  research.  Discoveries  in  the 
ruins  (such  as  the  Hammurabi  Code,  temple- 
literature,  etc.)  and  a  closer  scrutiny  of  the  sources 
used  by  the  Greek  historian  Herodotus  have  made 
it  quite  clear  that  the  old  Mesopotamian  civilisa- 
tions were  comparable  to  ours  in  moral  sentiment 
and  practice.  Instead  of  women  having  to  sacrifice 
their  virginity  in  the  temples  at  Babylon,  we  have 
abundant  evidence  that  chastity  was  demanded  and 
valued  in  brides,  and  that  the  priests  insisted  on 
purity.  Every  other  moral  sentiment  was  equally 
developed.  We  find  the  same  high  moral  develop- 
ment in  Egypt.  All  this  is  disregarded,  and  the 
superiority  of  the  Hebrew  and  Christian  sacred 
books  is  maintained  by  a  resolute  propagation  of 
ancient  fables. 

In  regard  to  Greece  and  Rome  the  practice  is  even 
worse.  The  exceptional  features  of  their  life  are 
described  as  normal  and  general  features,  and  the 
very  abundant  literature  which  has  put  in  its  true 
light  the  character  of  Athens  and  Rome  is  com- 
pletely ignored.  Special  periods  of  vice  under  bad 
emperors  (who,  in  the  aggregate,  ruled  only  seventy 
years  out  of  three  hundred  and  twenty)  are  spread 
over  the  whole  of  Roman  history.  The  gossip  and 
democratic  rhetoric  of  Juvenal  are  pressed  literally, 
in  spite  of  the  judgment  of  all  serious  historians. 
The  works  which  exhibit  the  better  side  of  Rome, 
and  the  inscriptions  which  show  a  very  high  degree 
of  character  and  humanitarianism  under  the  Stoics, 


THE  CLERICAL  SHAM  273 

are  wholly  suppressed.  The  balanced  verdict  of 
modern  historians  is  scandalously  flouted.  At  all 
costs  it  must  be  shown  that  Europe  needed  regenera- 
tion, and  that  Christian  morality  was  far  superior 
to  pagan ;  and  so  the  clergy  continue,  in  spite  of 
protests  from  some  of  their  own  lay  scholars  (Emil 
Reich,  for  instance),  to  draw  a  flagrantly  untruthful 
picture  of  the  morals  of  Greece  and  Rome. 

But  this  misrepresentation  is  venial  in  compari- 
son with  the  misrepresentation  of  later  European 
history.  The  clerical  story  of  the  moral  change 
that  came  over  Europe  when  it  embraced  Christi- 
anity is  one  of  the  grossest  impostures  ever  laid  on 
the  human  mind.  Even  clerics  like  Dean  Milman 
sufficiently  refuted  it  decades  ago,  but  it  flourishes 
as  profitably  as  ever.  From  the  pulpit  of  St.  Paul's 
to  the  tin  chapels  of  Mudville  it  is  one  of  the  most 
treasured  traditions,  and  perhaps  no  picture  is  more 
familiar  to  Christian  audiences  than  that  of  Rome, 
drunk  with  its  vices,  reeling  to  the  foot  of  the  cross 
and  embracing  sobriety.  It  is  a  calculated  clerical 
myth  in  every  line.  The  Stoics  reformed  Rome  at 
a  time  when  the  Christians  were  a  mere  handful  of 
obscure  people,  and  the  magnificent  work  done  and 
institutions  set  up  by  the  Stoics  were  not  sustained 
by  the  Church.  Even  in  regard  to  the  persecutions 
the  clergy  still  repeat  the  legend  which  modern 
historians  recognise  as  based  on  a  mass  of  medieval 
forgeries.  Civilisation  sank  rapidly  until  it  touched 
the  depth  of  the  early  Middle  Ages,  and,  as  Milman 
candidly  recognised,  the  claim  that  at  least  virtue 
19 


274  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

increased  is  the  reverse  of  the  truth.  The  Church 
did  not  denounce  or  abolish  slavery  :  it  discouraged 
education  :  it  abased  woman  :  it  set  back  a  thousand 
years  the  development  of  culture.  Yet  our  clerical 
writers  repeat  the  medieval  falsehoods  as  fluently  as 
if  modern  history  did  not  exist. 

The  later  period  is  just  as  grossly  falsified  by 
Catholic  writers,  but  here  the  Protestant — who  has 
somehow  convinced  himself  that  the  Holy  Spirit 
abandoned  Europe  to  the  devil  for  a  thousand  years 
— begins  to  cry  for  candour.  Much  of  the  Protestant 
literature  is  uncritical  and  unscrupulous  in  its  use 
of  authorities ;  it  is,  however,  instructive  in  com- 
parison with  the  kind  of  history  purveyed  by  the 
"  Catholic  Truth  Society."  There  is  hardly  a 
candid  historian  in  the  Church,  even  in  Germany 
and  the  United  States.  The  latest  historian  of  the 
Papacy,  Dr.  L.  Pastor,  is  certainly  entitled  to  respect 
for  his  effort,  though  even  he  does  not  present  all 
the  facts ;  while  men  like  Cardinal  Gasquet  are 
appallingly  one-sided.  I  am,  however,  thinking 
mainly  of  the  "  popular  "  literature,  on  which  no 
stricture  could  be  too  severe.  Indeed,  when  it 
comes  to  the  modern  period,  both  Protestant  and 
Catholic  literature  is  scandalous.  One  often  finds 
Voltaire,  Rousseau,  and  Paine  described  as 
"  atheists,"  and  the  most  slovenly  observations  on 
the  Revolution.  Roosevelt's  description  of  Paine 
as  a  "  dirty  little  atheist  "  is  a  good  indication  of 
the  kind  of  literature  that  even  an  educated  religious 
man  may  read. 


THE  CLERICAL  SHAM  275 

Orf  the  scientific  side  the  inaccuracy  and  careless- 
ness are  just  as  great,  but  the  field  is  too  vast 
for  consideration  here.    The  Conflict  in  regard  to 
evolution  has  produced  an  extraordinary  literature 
on    the  clerical  side,   and,   to  the  amusement  of 
students  of  science,  it  still  flows  from  the  religious 
press  and  refreshes  suburban  faith.     Men  who  have 
never  devoted  a  month  to  the  study  of   science 
engage    in    conflict  with    the    most    authoritative 
masters  of  biology,  and  thrill  their  ignorant  followers 
with    the   vigour  and  dexterity  of    their  fencing. 
These  Jesuit  and  other  writers  have,  of  course,  set 
up  a  lay-figure  for  their  valiant  attacks.     They  mis- 
represent the  views  and  motives  of  the  man  they 
oppose,  give  garbled  quotations  from  his  works, 
and   support   their   own   antiquated  positions  by 
quotations  from  scientific  men  who  lived  in  the 
earlier  phases    of    the  controversy.     No  trick  is 
more  common  in  this  class  of  literature  than  to 
justify  obsolete  statements  by  quoting  "  author- 
ities "  who  died  long  ago,  and  leaving  the  inexpert 
reader  to  suppose  that  they  are  modern  men  of 
science ;    while  clerics  who  could  not  distinguish 
a  palaeolithic  from  a  civilised  skull  write  pompous 
essays  on  such  subjects  as  the  evolution  of  man. 
Works  of  this  kind  circulate  by  the  hundred  in 
the  churches  even  to-day,  literally  deluding  millions 
of  people,  while  the  works  of  more  expert  writers 
are  denounced  as  "  against  religion  "  and  unfit  to 
read. 

Still  more  flagrant  is  the  clerical  behaviour  in 


276  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

rebutting  the  general  belief  that  men  of  science 
have  for  the  most  part  abandoned  Christianity. 
They — with  the  support  of  a  man  like  Sir  O.  Lodge 
— talk  glibly  of  the  death  of  "  Victorian  material- 
ism "  and  the  rebirth  of  spiritualism ;  whereas 
Huxley,  Tyndall,  Spencer,  Darwin,  Clifford,  Lewes, 
and  every  other  Victorian  man  of  science  repudi- 
ated materialism.  When  you  ask  who  the  modern 
men  are  who  have  abandoned  the  views  of  the 
Huxleian  generation  and  come  to  favour  religion, 
they  produce  an  extraordinarily  confused  list  of 
names.  I  have  referred  to  their  magnum  opus 
in  this  department,  Tabrum's  Religious  Beliefs 
of  Scientists.  It  actually  includes  two  prominent 
members  of  the  Rationalist  Press  Association ; 
while  men  like  Lodge  and  Wallace  and  Crookes  are 
included  among  the  more  orthodox.  Of  late  years 
it  is  the  fashion  to  impress  ignorant  congregations 
with  the  names  of  W.  James,  Eucken,  and  Bergson  ; 
whereas  James  and  Bergson  are  not  even  theists, 
and  Eucken  professes  a  form  of  theism  which  any 
Church  would  heatedly  repudiate.  The  members 
of  the  various  sects  are  literally  and  most  scandal- 
ously duped  on  this  point. 

I  have  claimed  that  the  clergy  are  spiteful  and 
unjust,  as  well  as  careless  about  truth.  There  are 
very  few  popular  religious  writers  who  seem  capable 
of  giving  a  correct  account  of  the  views  they  are 
criticising,  and  there  are  very  many  who  manipulate 
quotations  with  the  effect  of  grossly  deceiving 
their  readers.  Worse  still,  the  clergy  habitually 


THE  CLERICAL  SHAM  277 

slander  their  critics,  and  these  slanders  live  for 
years  in  spite  of  refutation.  Seven  years  ago  they 
began  to  circulate  a  silly  and  obviously  incred- 
ible charge  that  Professor  Haeckel  "  forged " 
illustrations  in  support  of  his  case,  and,  though 
the  libel  was  at  once  thoroughly  refuted  by  Pro- 
fessor Schmidt,  it  is  still  current.  Only  a  few 
months  ago  I  received  from  India  documents 
which  showed  that  the  Jesuits  there  were  still 
insisting  on  it.  A  friend  of  mine  informed  me  that 
he  heard  one  Scottish  preacher,  in  the  course  of  a 
public  lecture  on  Haeckel,  assure  his  audience, 
on  the  authority  of  a  "  friend  of  Haeckel's,"  that 
that  venerable  scientist  was  a  man  of  most  lice  ntious 
life  !  No  charge  is  too  gross  to  repeat,  if  it  dis- 
credits an  "  enemy  of  the  faith."  Dozens  of  times 
I  have  heard  of  the  wildest  calumnies  about  myself 
which  circulate  throughout  the  English-speaking 
world,  because  I  have  occasionally  written  a  critical 
work  (always  grossly  misrepresented  in  the  Catholic 
press)  about  the  Catholic  Church.  I  never  be- 
longed to  the  Catholic  priesthood  :  I  was  dis- 
charged from  it  for  fraud  :  I  left  it  in  order  to 
marry  a  nun  I  had  seduced  :  and  so  on.  Only 
the  lighter  of  these  things  are  put  in  print,  and 
then  always  with  the  name  omitted.  Only  a  few 
months  ago  a  priest  (and  Education-Councillor)  in 
a  Scottish  town  gravely  assured  a  schoolmistress, 
in  the  presence  of  an  acquaintance  of  mine,  that 
his  Church  held  unshakable  proofs  of  my  vicious 
ways.  As  usual,  my  request  that  they  would 


278  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

say  so  in  print  was  ignored.  Most  ex-priests  have 
the  same  experience.  One  of  the  most  refined 
and  religious  of  these  seceders,  a  man  who  became 
a  most  respected  professor  at  Oxford,  was  pursued 
by  the  calumny  (never  printed)  that  he  had  shown 
indecent  photographs  to  servant-girls  ! 

This  tactic  of  the  Church  militant  is  happily  so 
notorious  that  little  harm  is  done  among  the 
general  public,  but  Catholics  are  gravely  deluded, 
in  the  hope  that  they  will  be  induced  to  refrain 
from  reading  any  except  their  own  mendacious 
literature. 

Yet  one  of  the  most  familiar  themes  of  the  men 
who  pursue  this  tactic  is  that  they  alone  can  inspire 
high  character !  Notoriously  insincere  in  their 
professions,  teachers  of  doctrines  which  the  higher 
culture  of  our  time  and  many  of  their  own  leading 
scholars  condemn,  living  in  an  atmosphere  of  un- 
truth and  unreality,  relying  on  a  literature  which 
is  generally  as  indifferent  to  truth  as  it  is  to  grace, 
unscrupulously  repeating  idle  slanders  of  their 
opponents,  they  ask  us  to  believe  that  they  are 
genuinely  concerned  about  the  future  of  society 
if  we  continue  to  reject  their  authority.  It  is 
not  strange  that  the  great  cities  of  the  modern 
world  are  unmoved  by  their  dirges. 

The  third  point  of  my  indictment  is  that  the 
clergy  have  forged  the  historical  credentials  by 
which  they  lay  claim  to  our  respect.  I  have  already 
observed  that  their  version  of  the  history  of  Europe 
is  peculiar  to  their  own  literature,  and  I  have  else- 


THE  CLERICAL  SHAM  279 

where  (Tie  Bible  in  Europe)  shown  in  detail  how 
worthless  it  is.  The  "  conversion  "  of  Europe  to 
Christianity  in  the  fourth  century  was,  as  every 
historian  of  the  period  shows,  an  enforcement  of 
the  new  religion  on  Europe  by  imperial  authority, 
accompanied  by  the  most  violent  and  bloody 
repression  of  all  other  religions.  We  then  have 
the  witness  of  contemporary  Christian  writers 
that  this  "  conversion  "  was  followed  by  a  general 
moral  and  intellectual  decline.  The  great  reforms 
which  Rome  had  inaugurated  were  destroyed,  and 
Europe  sank  into  the  ignorance,  superstition, 
and  grossness  of  the  Middle  Ages.  It  is  quite 
true  that  the  triumph  of  Christianity  coincided 
with  the  overthrow  of  civilisation  by  the  northern 
tribes,  but  the  Teutonic  tribes  were  not  inferior  to 
the  Arabs  or  Turks  (whom  Mohammedanism 
civilised  in  the  course  of  a  century  or  two),  and 
the  Church  soon  obtained  despotic  power  over 
them.  The  Eastern  Empire,  I  may  add,  was  not 
dominated  by  the  barbarians,  yet  it  also  suffered 
a  grave  moral  and  intellectual  decline.  The  fact 
is,  that  the  clergy  made  no  effort  to  induce  the  bar- 
barians to  restore  the  old  school-system,  to  re- 
construct the  Roman  law,  to  free  the  slaves  (and, 
later,  the  serfs),  to  adjust  their  high  native  ideal 
of  womanhood  to  the  new  social  order,  or  to  re- 
build the  fine  civic  and  philanthropic  system  of 
the  Romans.  Culture  fell  so  low  that  the  very 
promising  germs  of  later  Greek  science  were  allowed 
to  die,  and  nearly  the  whole  of  the  surviving  Greek 


280  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

literature  was  unknown  in  Europe  for  many 
centuries.  The  trade  in  spurious  relics,  the  rapacity 
and  unscrupulousness  of  the  Papacy,  the  coarse- 
ness of  the  nobles  and  people,  and  the  general 
sexual  licence  of  priests  and  monks  were  almost 
incredible. 

This  dark  age  began  to  receive  the  first  rays  of  new 
light  in  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries,  and 
historians  are  agreed  that  the  new  light  came  from 
the  civilisation  of  the  Spanish  Moors.  This  it  was 
that,  by  introducing  Greek  literature  and  its  Arab 
commentators,  led  to  the  early  revival  of  science. 
But  the  cult  of  the  grossest  relics  and  superstitions 
continued,  and  the  clergy  repressed,  or  inspired 
rulers  to  repress,  all  dissent  with  more  ferocity  than 
ever.  During  the  one  general  persecution  of  the 
early  Christians  by  the  Romans  about  two  thousand 
had  suffered  for  the  faith  ;  and  only  a  few  hundreds 
can  be  added  from  the  earlier  sporadic  persecu- 
tions. But  within  fifty  years  of  the  establishment 
of  Christianity  in  the  Empire,  tens  of  thousands 
of  Donatists,  Manichseans,  Arians,  Pagans,  etc., 
were  done  to  death,  and  hundreds  of  thousands 
ruined  or  maltreated,  by  the  triumphant  Christians. 
In  later  centuries  it  was  the  turn  of  Monophysites, 
Monothelites,  etc.,  and  in  the  first  quarter  of  the 
thirteenth  century  alone  more  than  a  million 
heretics  were  done  to  death  in  Languedoc.  If  the 
Jews  and  witches  and  others  who  suffered  on  re- 
ligious grounds  be  added,  the  "  butcher's  bill "  of 
the  new  religion  passes  ten  millions ;  and  beyond 


THE  CLERICAL  SHAM  281 

these  are  the  countless  millions  of  those  who  suffered 
something  less  than  death. 

We  look  back  to-day  with  feelings  of  horror  on 
this  ghastly  carnage,  especially  when  we  remember 
the  absurd  character  of  the  doctrines  which  the 
heretics  assailed  and  the  immorality  of  the  clergy 
and  monks  who  were  primarily  responsible  for  the 
executions  and  massacres.  But  this  savage  re- 
pression of  independent  though f  had  consequences 
of  an  even  more  disastrous  nature  on  European 
civilisation.  It  not  only  removed  from  the  com- 
munity many  of  the  more  courageous  and  more 
intelligent  stocks,  but  it  intimidated  others  from 
using  their  powers,  except  in  the  futile  argumenta- 
tion of  the  Schoolmen.  The  result  was  a  prolonged 
suspension  of  the  development  of  the  higher  culture 
which  was  destined  to  give  Europe  its  supremacy. 
It  will  hardly  be  doubted  to-day  that  this  culture 
was  contained  in  the  scientific  works  of  the  Greeks, 
especially  the  Alexandrian  Greeks.  The  Arabs 
brought  this  culture  to  Spain,  and,  chiefly  through 
the  mediation  of  the  Jews,  it  was  slowly  introduced 
into  Europe  and  inspired  such  scholars  as  Gilbert, 
Roger  Bacon,  Albert  the  Great,  and  Copernicus. 
Physics,  chemistry,  and  medicine  began  their 
development.  But  the  fate  of  Roger  Bacon  and 
Albert  and  Vesalius  sufficiently  reminds  us  of  the 
Church's  attitude  toward  the  new  culture,  and 
the  story  of  the  hampering  of  intellectual  progress 
in  the  exact  study  of  nature  has  been  repeatedly 
told.  The  scholastic  fever,  which  had  absorbed 


282  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

the  energies  of  most  of  the  acutest  minds  in  Europe, 
had  to  disappear,  and  the  power  of  the  Church  to 
be  enfeebled,  before  the  civilisation  of  Europe 
could  advance. 

The  further  introduction  of  Greek  literature, 
when  the  Turks  drove  the  Greeks  from  Constanti- 
nople, the  invention  of  printing,  the  expansion  of 
commerce  and  navigation,  and  the  weakening  of 
Church-authority  by  the  Reformation,  opened 
the  modern  phase  of  the  development  of  European 
civilisation.  It  is  only  for  the  last  of  these  changes 
that  a  section  of  the  clergy  may  plausibly  claim 
our  gratitude,  and  even  here  we  must  make  re- 
serves. The  share  of  the  laity  in  the  Reformation 
was  greater  than  the  share  of  the  clergy,  and  the 
aim  of  the  Reformed  clergy  was  by  no  means 
to  free  and  stimulate  the  intelligence  of  Europe. 
They  frowned  on  lay  culture,  and  burned  their 
opponents,  as  inhumanly  as  the  Roman  priests  did. 
It  was  not  until  the  growth  of  sects  had  further 
enfeebled  ecclesiastical  authority,  and  a  large  body 
of  lay  scholars  had  arisen,  that  Europe  became 
civilised,  even  in  a  generous  sense  of  the  word. 
Then  science  and  philosophy  and  history  grew  to 
the  proportions  which  distinguish  "  modern  times," 
and  a  resolute  social  and  humanitarian  movement 
began  to  remove  those  appalling  injustices  of  the 
industrial  and  political  order  which  the  clergy 
had  witnessed  in  silence  for  more  than  a  thousand 
years. 

I  repeat  that  this  is  not  an  eccentric  view  of 


THE  CLERICAL  SHAM  283 

the  development  of  European  civilisation,  but  the 
view  taken  by  historians  ever  since  their  science 
was  emancipated  from  clerical  control.  The  view 
which  the  clergy  still  sedulously  propagate,  that 
the  Christian  religion  inspired  the  civilisation  of 
Europe,  is  the  most  preposterous  historical  sham 
which  we  still  entertain.  It  is  unintelligible  how  a 
scholar  like  Mr.  Bryce  can  give  even  a  qualified 
support  to  it.  In  the  minds  of  most  people  it 
is  a  pitiful  confusion  of  ideas  associated  with  one 
of  the  most  elementary  fallacies  known  to  the 
logician.  The  fallacy  is  the  syllogism  which  suffices 
for  the  majority  of  the  faithful :  Europe  is  the 
great  centre  of  civilisation,  Europe  was  Christian 
during  the  development  of  this  civilisation,  there- 
fore Christianity  was  the  inspirer  of  the  civilisation. 
The  inference  is  foolish  enough  in  itself,  but  it 
becomes  ludicrous  when  we  reflect  on  the  facts. 
Europe  was  civilised  before  it  became  Christian; 
it  inherited  all  the  best  culture  and  experience 
of  Egypt,  Mesopotamia,  Persia,  Greece,  and  Rome. 
But  Europe  lost  its  civilisation  when  it  became 
Christian,  very  largely  because  the  new  religion 
found  culture  dangerous  to  its  superstitions  and 
repressed  it.  And  Europe  owes  its  return  to 
civilisation  to  the  revival  of  pagan  ideas,  and  it 
advances  in  civilisation  in  proportion  as  it  discards 
Christianity. 

The  confusion  of  ideas  is  just  as  foolish  as  the 
fallacy.  Europe  is  "  great "  in  two  very  different 
senses.  Most  of  the  white  nations  are  "  great " 


284  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

in  the  vastness  of  their  territory  and  the  wealth 
they  have  derived  from  subject  peoples.  To  con- 
nect this  form  of  greatness  with  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  is  audacious  :  it  is  a  practice  which  really 
belongs  to  the  age  when  English  merchants  who 
waxed  fat  on  the  negro-slave  trade  could  com- 
placently give  the  name  "Jesus"  to  their  vessels. 
This  form  of  greatness  frankly  rested  on  buccaneer- 
ing. Europe  is  great  also  in  intellectual  develop- 
ment, with  the  scientific  and  technical  achievements 
to  which  this  has  led.  We  need  not  ask  what 
particular  Christian  sentiment  has  inspired  this ; 
we  know  too  well  the  share  the  clergy  have  had 
in  repressing  it. 

Lastly,  Europe  is  great  in  the  cultivation  of 
humane  sentiment  and  the  endeavour  to  practise 
social  justice.  It  is  here  that  the  clergy  usually 
claim  their  usefulness  ;  and  there  is  hardly  a  bolder 
mis-statement  in  their  literature  than  this.  The 
New  Testament  contains  not  a  single  moral  senti- 
ment that  was  unknown  to  the  Greeks  and  Romans, 
and  to  the  later  Jews :  the  moral  sentiments  of 
the  New  Testament  are  so  vague  and  elementary 
that  not  a  single  priest  denounced  slavery  for  nine 
hundred  years,  and  not  a  Church  has  denounced 
war  for  more  than  eighteen  hundred  years  :  the 
Christian  ethic  was  so  uninspiring  that  Europe 
reeked  with  vice  and  crime  and  war  and  social 
injustice  until  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  or  begin- 
ning of  the  nineteenth  century  :  when  the  reform 
began,  in  the  nineteenth  century,  hardly  a  single 


THE  CLERICAL  SHAM  285 

priest  aided  it  (until  it  had  won  millions  of  ad- 
herents), and  the  bishops  almost  unanimously 
opposed  it :  and  the  humanitarianism  of  modern 
times  is  an  almost  exclusively  lay  movement, 
gaining  power  and  fervour  in  proportion  as  we 
sweep  the  clergy  aside.  Europe  was  civilised  under 
the  Roman  and  Greek  pagans,  and  it  is  civilised, 
in  the  same  broad  sense,  under  the  modern  pagans  ; 
it  was  not  civilised  in  the  intervening  period,  and 
the  worst  features  of  its  life  to-day  are,  not  recent 
outgrowths,  but  inheritances  from  the  Christian 
past. 

The  pleas  which  some  of  the  clergy,  who  know  a 
little  history,  urge  against  this  plain  generalisation 
of  the  historical  facts  are  curious.  The  majority, 
of  course,  knowing  nothing  of  history,  repeat  the 
conventional  untruths,  but  a  few  would  tell  us  that 
this  modern  humanitarianism  is  due  to  a  belated 
appreciation  of  the  Christian  ethic.  Are  justice, 
sympathy,  truthfulness,  kindness,  and  honour  con- 
fined to  the  Christian  ethic  ?  Was  there  ever  a 
great  moralist,  or  a  mature  civilisation,  which 
failed  to  appreciate  them  ?  Is  not  the  modern 
humanitarian  movement  plainly  characterised  by  a 
determination  to  do  good  to  men,  not  for  a  reward 
in  heaven  or  because  Christ  (like  so  many  others) 
enjoined  it,  but  because  you  cannot  have  a  fine 
mind  and  character  without  experiencing  this 
determination  ?  Were  there,  in  the  fifteen  hundred 
years  of  Christian  domination,  not  enough  men 
with  intelligence  enough  to  perceive  the  practical 


286  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

bearing  of  Christ's  ethic  ?  Have  these  clerical 
writers  frankly  abandoned  the  claim  that  the 
"  Spirit  of  God  "  guided  their  predecessors  during 
those  fifteen  centuries  ?  And  have  they  read  a 
line  of  the  modern  literature  which  shows  that 
there  is  not  one  humane  sentiment  in  the  Gospels 
that  was  not  well  known  to  the  Jews  before  the 
time  of  Christ  ? 

The  case  of  the  clergy  is  a  tissue  of  sophistry  and 
untruth  from  beginning  to  end.  They  have  done 
nothing  as  a  body  for  European  civilisation,  in 
proportion  to  their  power  and  leisure  and  resources. 
They  did  not  even  teach  it  chastity.  They  hindered 
the  development  of  the  culture  which  it  vitally 
needed,  and  dissipated  its  finest  intelligence  in  the 
tilling  of  barren  soil.  They  fought  fiercely  for  their 
own  wealth  and  power,  and  were  for  fifteen  hundred 
years  a  mighty  parasitic  growth  on  the  working 
community.  They  kept  the  bandage  of  illiteracy 
on  the  eyes  of  ninety  per  cent,  of  their  people  for 
fifteen  hu'ndred  years,  and  dined  merrily  with  the 
nobles  who  exploited  the  people.  They  exacted 
respect  in  virtue  of  their  supposed  close  communion 
with  an  all-holy  God ;  and  they  were  themselves, 
especially  in  their  highest  representatives,  immoral 
and  hypocritical  in  an  appalling  proportion,  were 
brutal  in  coercing  their  critics,  were  traffickers  in 
spurious  and  sordid  relics,  and  were,  when  noble 
men  and  women  at  last  won  liberty  from  them, 
ignorant,  slanderous,  and  careless  of  truth  as  no 
reputable  body  of  laymen  would  stoop  to  become. 


THE  CLERICAL  SHAM  287 

Their  record  is  as  poor  as  their  opportunity  was 
great,  and  the  modern  world  is,  in  strict  proportion 
to  the  growth  of  education,  passing  disdainfully  by 
the  open  doors  of  their  churches.  Of  the  twelve 
million  inhabitants  of  the  three  greatest  cities  of 
Europe  hardly  two  millions  attend  church  ;  and  if 
it  were  not  for  the  incessant,  feverish,  and  highly 
organised  efforts  of  the  clergy  themselves,  church- 
going  would  show  a  further  rapid  and  enormous 
shrinkage.  Yet  even  in  this  last  phase  we  find 
them  mumbling  to  ill-instructed  congregations 
about  their  glorious  record  in  Europe  (crowned  by 
a  war  of  four  hundred  million  people),  about  the 
wickedness  of  an  age  which  prefers  the  indulgence 
of  its  passions  to  their  serene  guidance,  and  about 
the  terrible  doom  which  they  foresee  for  Europe 
if  it  does  not  return  to  its  medieval  guardians. 

As  I  observed  in  dealing  with  the  political  organ- 
isation, Christianity  is  not  a  set  of  ideas  but  a 
wealthy  and  powerful  corporation.  Once  it  was 
a  body  of  men  holding  certain  beliefs  :  now  it  is, 
in  essence,  an  organisation  for  the  enforcement  of 
those  beliefs.  It  is,  in  the  main,  this  professional 
or  corporate  interest  which  sustains  Christianity 
in  Europe  :  but  it  is  losing  heavily.  I  have  shown 
(Decay  of  the  Church  of  Rome]  that  the  oldest  branch 
of  the  Church  has  lost  about  a  hundred  million 
followers  in  a  hundred  years.  I  do  not  think  that 
the  Protestant  Churches,  being  more  progressive 
and  less  offensive  in  their  tactics,  have  lost  so 
heavily,  but  the  extraordinary  decay  of  church- 


288  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

going  in  cities  like  Berlin,  London,  and  New  York 
is  suggestive.  In  spite  of  all  the  tricks  and  devices 
of  the  clergy — the  vestments  and  concerts,  the 
matrimonial  agencies  and  philanthropic  coercion, 
the  Y.M.C.A.'s  and  P.S.A.'s  and  all  the  rest— the 
people  still  fall  away.  No  proof  could  be  formu- 
lated to-day  that  even  the  majority  of  the  people 
of  Europe  are  Christians. 

The  thoughtful  minority  in  the  religious  world 
are  retreating  upon  the  liberal  theism  which  so 
many  of  our  cultural  leaders  profess,  or  upon  some 
even  more  vague  mysticism.  Into  this  further 
province  it  is  not  my  intention  to  go.  The  world 
will,  no  doubt,  long  remain  divided  in  opinion,  or 
in  sentiment,  on  fundamental  religious  issues,  and 
for  my  practical  purpose  this  difference  is  of  no 
account.  There  is,  however,  one  last  consideration 
put  forward  by  the  clergy  which  it  may  be  useful  to 
consider. 

It  is  represented  that  we  are  in  danger  of  a 
triumph  of  "  materialism,"  and  it  is  therefore  wise 
to  cling,  in  spite  of  their  errors,  to  the  Churches 
which  so  solidly  represent  "  spiritualism."  Since 
many  people  have  regarded  me  as  peculiarly  ex- 
posed to  this  danger  of  falling  under  the  evil  spell 
of  "  materialism,"  I  have  made  eager  inquiries 
among  spiritualist  writers  as  to  the  nature  of 
"  spirit."  I  am  still  hopefully  inquiring.  Most  of 
the  anaemic  mystics  who  gush  over  the  word 
cannot  tell  you  what  it  means.  They  have  a  vague 
conviction  that  the  spiritual  is  immensely  more 


THE  CLERICAL  SHAM  289 

important  and  productive  of  good  than  the  material, 
and  that  therefore  materialism  is  the  most  appalling 
blight  that  can  fall  on  a  nation.  These  prophets 
of  evil  are,  as  I  have  previously  observed,  not  strong 
in  history.  They  do  not  explain  how  Confucianism 
(which  Sir  Edwin  Arnold,  accurately  enough, 
calls  materialism)  proved  so  great  an  inspiration 
in  China  and  Japan  :  how  the  Stoics  (who  refused 
utterly  to  believe  in  spirit)  wrought  so  much  good 
and  inspired  so  fine  a  character  at  Rome  :  or  how 
this  materialistic  age  of  ours  is  so  idealistic.  They 
know  only  that  we  must  at  all  costs  cultivate  the 
spiritual — read  spiritual  writers,  respect  spiritual 
persons,  encourage  spiritual  clergymen  and  artists 
and  actors — and  loathe  materialism  from  the 
bottom  of  our  hearts.  And  it  is  therefore  quite 
natural  to  suppose  that  all  that  is  precious  in  life 
and  progress  depends  on  the  belief  in  the  existence 
of  "  spirits." 

In  point  of  fact,  we  have  here  entangled  ourselves 
in  an  extraordinary  confusion.  The  cultivation 
of  intelligence,  fine  sentiment,  and  straight  character 
has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  question 
whether  the  mind  of  man  is  or  is  not  divisible  into 
parts,  or  has  or  has  not  "  inertia  "  :  which  are 
the  only  philosophic  distinctions  between  matter 
and  spirit  that  I  have  discovered.  The  tradition 
of  the  spirituality  of  the  mind  is  responsible  for  this 
confusion.  //  the  mind  is  a  spirit,  then  spirit  is 
assuredly  the  source  of  the  finest  things  in  life,  and 
is  far  superior  to  matter.  But  that  is  just  the 
20 


290  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

question  at  issue ;  and  it  really  does  not  matter 
two  pins  for  practical  purposes  whether  the  mind 
is  extended  and  inert  (in  the  scientific  sense),  or 
unextended  and  devoid  of  inertia.  One  has  only 
to  substitute  clear  conceptions  for  vague  terms, 
and  the  whole  controversy  is  reduced  to  absurdity. 
Whichever  side  wins  in  the  academic  battle  about 
the  nature  of  mind,  it  remains  as  true  as  ever  that 
the  cultivation  of  mind  is  one  of  the  most  important 
aims  that  men  can  set  up.  Why  on  earth  should 
we  be  less  disposed  to  cultivate  the  mind  of  the 
race  if  some  sudden  turn  of  scientific  advance  were 
to  prove  it  "  a  function  of  the  brain  "  ?  It  remains 
true  that  our  race  owes  the  position  it  occupies 
entirely  to  mind  :  that  our  civilisation  owes  its 
ascendancy  over  barbarism  to  mind  :  and  that  we 
rely  entirely  on  the  further  cultivation  of  mind 
— of  intelligence,  will,  and  emotion — to  destroy 
those  shams  which  impede  our  progress  and  curtail 
our  prosperity  and  happiness.  It  is  ludicrous  to 
say  that  we  cannot  thus  cultivate  mind  unless  we 
believe  it  to  be  an  indivisible  and  incomprehensible 
and  indefinable  something.  It  would,  in  fact,  be 
less  absurd  to  say  that  we  should  have  more 
confidence  in  our  power  to  cultivate  mind  if  we 
regarded  it  as  an  organic  function,  subject  to 
definite  treatment. 

As  to  the  lapse  of  a  belief  in  personal  immor- 
tality, it  is  not  less  absurd  to  say  that  this  would 
paralyse  our  efforts.  As  Ruskin  says  on  the  point  : 
"  The  shortness  of  life  is  not,  to  any  rational  person, 


THE  CLERICAL  SHAM  291 

a  conclusive  reason  for  wasting  the  space  of  it  which 
may  be  granted  him."  That  magnificent  preface 
to  The  Crown  of  Wild  Olive  ought  long  ago  to  have 
silenced  these  dismal  sophists.  The  fact  is,  that  this 
age  of  ours,  in  proportion  as  it  grows  indifferent 
to  the  old  legends  and  the  appeals  of  the  clergy, 
rises  toward  heights  which  man  never  climbed 
before.  The  clergy  are  most  amusingly  puzzled. 
Popes  tell  us  that  we  are  children  of  perdition, 
reeling  into  an  earthly  abyss,  to  say  nothing  of  a 
deeper  beyond  :  archbishops  say  that  we  are  just 
beginning  to  realise  the  true  import  of  Christ's 
teaching.  The  candid  man  or  woman  will  look 
searchingly  for  himself  or  herself  into  the  heart  of 
our  age,  and,  if  he  or  she  have  an  accurate  knowledge 
of  earlier  ages,  will  recognise  that  it  throbs  with  a 
human  idealism,  tenderness,  and  sympathy  which 
have  been  unknown  in  Europe  since  the  old  pagans 
departed. 

Let  me  end  on  that  note.  The  religious  person 
will  close  this  work,  if  he  perseveres  to  the  end, 
with  a  series  of  horrified  exclamations.  Socialism  ! 
Immoralism  !  Republicanism !  Materialism  !  Mal- 
thusianism  !  I  shudder  under  the  shower  of  horrid 
epithets,  yet  would  ask  this  outraged  reader  to 
forget  "  'isms  "  f or  a  moment  and  consider  a  simple 
statement  of  the  human  faith  I  here  present. 

The  ideals  which  I  hold  in  supreme  regard  are 
truth  in  our  beliefs  and  statements,  justice  and 
generosity  in  our  actions,  the  co-operation  of  all 
men  to  make  the  earth  happier.  I  am  in  tempera- 


292  THE  TYRANNY  OF  SHAMS 

ment  no  hedonist.  Thirty  years  of  assiduous  study, 
of  much  severe  trial,  of  stoical  endurance  have  left 
me  more  or  less  insensible  to  what  men  and  women 
usually  call  happiness.  My  personal  desires  are 
sated  in  that  I  may,  in  circumstances  of  peace  and 
modest  comfort,  devote  myself  to  intellectual 
labour  and  the  employment  in  the  cause  of  progress 
of  such  influence  as  I  have.  I  see  no  purpose 
imposed  on  life,  and  I  therefore  conclude  that  men 
and  women  are  free  to  put  such  purpose  on  their 
collective  life  as  they  deem  advisable.  No  purpose 
seems  to  be  wiser,  grander,  or  more  inspiring  than 
that  they  should  seek  to  assuage  the  last  pang  of 
remediable  pain  and  bring  sunshine  into  the  dark 
places  of  the  earth.  For  me  there  is  no  heaven  ; 
and  therefore  the  spectacle  of  those  thousands 
passing  daily  and  nightly  into  the  silence,  after 
lives  of  pain,  misery,  or  brutality,  while  we  cling 
to  the  barbaric  traditions  or  ill-devised  institutions 
that  have  come  down  to  us,  is  an  intolerable  goad. 
Let  us  have  criticism  and  scrutiny  of  all  that  we  do 
and  all  that  we  believe  ;  and  let  us  have  courage  to 
reject  all  that  we  think  false  and  purify  all  that  we 
find  corrupted.  Let  us  assert  that  mighty  power 
of  which  we  are  conscious ;  and,  if  it  take  ages  to 
undo  all  the  errors  of  the  past  and  agree  upon  a  plan 
of  a  regenerated  earth,  let  us  at  least  strive  to 
awaken  men  to  a  consciousness  of  their  power  and 
of  the  evils  they  have  to  remove.  These  are  my 
suggestions  of  what  is  wrong  in  life  and  how  it  may 
be  righted.  It  may  be  materialism,  this  plain  human 


THE  CLERICAL  SHAM  293 

gospel  of  mine  ;  but  it  seems  to  me  that,  if  it  could 
be  carried  into  effect,  there  would  spread  gradually 
over  this  earth  such  joy  and  freedom  and  prosperity 
as  men's  prophets  have  babbled  of  in  their  dying 
dreams. 


INDEX 


Angell,  Mr.  N.,  36. 
Arbitration,  38—45. 
Art  and  war,  29,  33. 
Asceticism,  160-2,  169,  173. 
Athletics,  28,  237. 
Australasia,  races  of,  69,  70. 
Australia,  74,  107,  127,  132. 

Babylon,  morality  of,  272. 

Balfour,  Mr.,  93,  no. 

Belloc,  Mr.,  90. 

Bible,  criticism  of  the,  260-3. 

Bible  lessons,  224-8. 

Bioscope,  the,  239. 

Birth-rate,  the,  119,  120,  170-5, 

rax. 

Bishops,  the,  99,  103. 
Blake,  167. 

Booth,  Mr.,  on  poverty,  116. 
Brotherhood  of  men,  50. 

Canada,  74,  107. 
Carlyle,  59,  68,  211. 
Catholic  Truth  Society,  274. 
Censorship,  240. 
Chamberlain,  Mr.  A.,  78. 
Chastity,  160-4. 
Chesterton,  Mr.  C.,  90. 

Mr.  G.  K,  271. 
Chicago,  schools  of,  215,  216. 
China,  the  future  of,  47. 
Christian  doctrines,  263-7. 

„        ethic.the,  160,  284,  285. 
,,       ideal  of  marriage,  153. 
Civil  List,  the,  93. 
Civilisation  and  the  clergy,  279- 

284. 

Clergy,  the,  250-88. 
Clerical  teachers,  231-2. 
Clifford,  Dr.,  226. 


Coinage,  plurality  of,  60-3. 
Collectivism,  140-7. 
Colonies,  the,  107. 
Commons,  House  of,  94-8. 
Confucianism,  289. 
Conservatism,  4-8,  100. 
Constituencies,   division  of,    96, 

COX. 

Constitution,  the,  105,  106. 
Conventional  slavery,  252-6. 
Conversion  of  Europe,  the,  279. 
Co  -  operative    Movement,    the, 

145.  247- 
Corruption,   parliamentary,    92- 


Democracy,  127-8,  236,  251. 
Dickens,  C.,  211. 
Divorce,  152,  154-8. 

,,       in  English  law,fi54-5. 
Domestic  pets,  255. 

,,       reform,  199,  200,  211. 
Duel,  the,  40. 

Education    and    the    Churches, 
207,  208. 

modern,  207,  209. 

of  character,  223-9. 

of  the  adult,  233-57. 

problems  of,  209-14. 

Roman,  207. 

the  reform  of,  2 1 4-3  2 . 
Egypt,  73,  107. 
Elections,  85,  91,  95. 
Emigration,  126. 
Empire,  the,  106-8. 
Endowment  of  married  women, 

194,  200. 

Entertainment,  237. 
Epicurus,  1 6. 


394 


INDEX 


295 


Esperanto,  56,  57. 
Etiquette,  256. 
Eugenics,  174-8. 
Evolution  and  progress,  7,  8. 

Family,  the,  148-78. 
Fashion,  slavery  to,  253-6. 
Feeding  of  children,  214,  216. 
Franchise,  the,  88,  102,  186. 
Free  libraries,  248. 
Free  love,  168. 

Gasquet,  Cardinal,  274. 
Geography,  teaching  of,  220. 
George,  Mr.  Lloyd   80,  94, 
Germany  and  war,  26,   27,  29, 

35.  42. 
Goethe,  159. 
Greatest  good,  the,  15. 
Greece  ruined  by  war,  31. 
Gregory  vn.,  169. 

Haeckel,  Professor,  277. 
Hague  Tribunal,  the,  38,  42-4. 
Happiness,    the   philosophy   of, 

16,  17. 

Hereditary  wealth,  134. 
Heredity,  theories  of,  175. 
Heretics,  burning  of,  268,  269. 
Higher  Critics,  the,  262. 
Hindus,  the,  73,  107. 
History,  teaching  of,  219,  220. 
Hobhouse,  Mr.  L.,  150. 
Holyoake,  G.  J.,  89. 
Home,  reform  of  the,  172,  195, 

199,  210-5. 

Honours,  sale  of,  93,  108. 
Horton.  Dr.  R.,  270. 
Humility,  160. 
Hypatia,  242. 

Immoral  acts,  164. 
Imperialism,  106,  108. 
Income,  equality  of,  133. 
Indissoluble  marriage,  150-4. 
Instinct,  210. 
Insurance,  125. 

Jerome,  St.,  152,  153. 
Jews,  the,  and  marriage,  153. 


Kings,  origin  of,  81,  82. 

Labour  bureaux,  124. 

„      future  of,  100,  127. 
Ladder  of  education,  230. 
Laissez-faire    attitude,    the,    6, 

112,  113,  206. 
Languages  in  the  school,  53,  222. 

„        plurality  of,  52-9. 
Laws  of  history,  5. 
Lecture-societies,  248,  250. 
Lesson  of  history,  the,  5. 
Liberalism,  future  of,  loo,  127. 
London  County  Council,  216, 223. 
Lords.  House  of,  83,  102-5. 
Lower  races,  67. 
Luca,  Father  de,  269. 
Lust,  162. 

Maeterlinck,  M.,  146. 
Malthusianism,  119,  120,  170-5, 

191. 

Manners,  256. 
Maori,  the,  69. 
Marconi  scandal,  the,  90. 
Marriage,  150-68,  178,  194-200. 
Materialism,  18,  290. 
Mathematics,  221. 
Mechanics'  Institutes,  247. 
Middle  Ages,  the,  279,  280. 
Militarism,  22-49. 
Mill,  J.  S.,  on  sex-ethics,  163. 
Missionaries,  72. 
Monogamy,  151. 
Moral  lessons,  228-9. 
Morley,  Lord,  104,  107. 
Morris,  W.,  141. 
Motherhood,  endowment  of,  194- 

200. 

Municipal  government,  85. 
Museums,  249. 
Music  hall,  the,  238,  239,  240. 

Novel,  the,  241-2. 

Old  Testament,  the,  260,  261. 
Old-age  pensions,  125. 
Optimism,  grounds  of,  5,  6. 
Over-population,  fear  of,  192. 
Owen,  Robert,  207. 


296 


INDEX 


Parental  responsibility,  210. 
Parliament,  83. 
Party-system,  the,  87,  92-9. 
Pastor,  Dr.  L.,  274. 
Patriotism,  64-5. 
Peace  Societies,  the,  44. 
Persecution,  religious,  280. 
Plato,  8. 
Politics,  87-102. 
Polynesians,  the,  69,  72. 
Poor-law  system,  the,  125. 
Poverty,  problem  of,  1 10-45."') 

„         proportions  of,  in  Lon- 
don, 114-21. 

,,         remedies  of,  124-42. 

,,         roots  of,  132,  133,  139. 
Press,  the,  243-6. 
Progress  in  modern  times,  5,  in. 
Proportional  representation,  100, 

101. 

Purification-ceremony,  161. 
Puritanism,  238. 
Purpose  of  life,  14,  15-17. 

Read,  Professor  C.,  145. 
Reformation,  the,  282. 
Reich,  Dr.  Emil,  179,  273. 
Renaissance,  the,  280-2. 
Restlessness  of  the  age,  i,  2. 
Reviewers,  243. 
Roman  Catholics,  150-4,  274. 
Rome,  morality  in  ancient,  272- 

273- 

„      ruined  by  war,  30,  31. 
Rowntree,  Mr.,  116,  122. 
Royalty,  82,  84,  105. 
Ruskin,  29,  257. 

Salvation  Army,  the,  126. 
Schools,  secondary,  230-2. 
Science  and  Socialism,  146. 

„       in  the  school,  221. 
Second  Chambers,  102,  104. 
Secular  education,  227-8. 
Sentiment,  value  of,  10. 
Sex-ethic,  reform  of,  163-9. 
Shelley  on  woman,  202. 


Socialism,  140-7. 

Sparta,  32. 

Specialism,  3. 

Spiritualism,  288-90. 

Sport,  237. 

Stephen,  Sir  Leslie,  108. 

Submerged  tenth,  the,  121. 

Suffrage,  woman  and  the,  185-8. 

Surplus  labour,  132. 

Swinburne,  159. 

Syndicalists,  127. 

Tabrum,  Mr.,  265. 
Tariff  question,  the,  63. 
Tasmanian,  the,  69. 
Teacher,  ideals  of  the,  214. 
Tolstoi,  14. 

Trade  Unions,  112,  127. 
Tramp,  the,  125. 
Truth  and  untruth,  20. 
Trusts,  128. 

Virginity,  cult  of,  161. 

Wages  and  prices,  129-31. 
War,  cost  of,  35-6. 
„     in  history,  29-34. 
,,     in  primitive  peoples,  24-5. 
„     justifications  of,  26-9. 
„     our  conduct  of  the,  77-81. 
War  Office,  the,  45,  46. 
Ward,  Dr.  J.,  268. 
Watson,  Mr.,  n. 
Wealth,  inequality  of,  123,  133- 

136- 
„       meaning    of,    134,    135, 

136. 

Webb,  Mr.  S.,  141,  224. 
Weights  and  measures,  60-3. 
Wells,  Mr.  H.  G.,  140,  198,  242. 
Woman  and  early  Christianity, 

181-3. 
,,       economic   independence 

of,  188-200. 
„       enfranchisement  of,  185- 

188. 
,,       nature  of,  183-5,  2O1- 


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